


Second Star to the Right and Straight on Till Morning

by riyku



Category: CW Network RPF, Supernatural RPF
Genre: M/M, Mental Instability, Past Violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-08-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 03:48:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2094549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riyku/pseuds/riyku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jared's life has always been mapped out for him: get good grades so he can get into a high-ranked college, get more good grades so he can get into an internship at a prestigious architecture firm, then land an even better job.  When his uncle needs help remodeling his house, Jared volunteers. Soon after arriving at the tiny barrier island, however, he finds himself drawn into the laid back life of the locals, and one local in particular.</p><p>Jensen does alright for himself. A part-time gig at the local bar down on the main drag, along with the occasional repair work when his buddies wreck their surfboards keeps him from starving. He has a great group of friends, who know not to mention it when he talks in circles or his hands shake a little. He also has Jared now, and he's not too sure how things are going to look when it's time hand him back to the real world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Star to the Right and Straight on Till Morning

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2014 spn_j2_bigbang
> 
> The wonderful sillie82's art post is [here.](http://sillie82.livejournal.com/324016.html)

 

 

  
_I suppose it's like the ticking crocodile, isn't it? Time is chasing after all of us._

The place is laid back. Easy. A small beach town with only one road in, a small two-lane strip that doubles as the main drag, the double yellow in the center worn away for long stretches. The road is dotted with a handful of ma and pa stores in the few blocks before the land gives way to the ocean. There’s a bar or two, and a couple of surf shops. No clubs, no ocean condominium buildings reaching up to the sky, no t-shirt shops selling what tourists want. Anyway, there aren’t any tourists to buy the stuff, and the locals living on this small barrier island sure seem to prefer it that way.

Not a lot of news happens either. There’s one newspaper and even that only comes out once a week, written entirely by a journalist who retired ten years ago and still can’t manage to kick the habit. Surf’s up is a valid excuse to close up shop or call out of work, and no one locks their doors. It’s that kinda place.

It’s also not the sort of town that a guy, just shy of twenty-one years old, wants to spend his last couple of weeks of summer vacation. It’s Jared’s last free summer, the way he sees it. Next summer will be used up with an internship at some architecture firm, all in preparation for the summer after, when he’ll graduate and carve himself out a bit of the real world. Whatever the hell that means.

Only twenty, and his life is plotted out for him. It’s a straight shot drawn between point a and point b, and already Jared’s wishing for a few more zig-zags, all those last minute, tire-screeching left hand turns that might take him to places that aren’t on the map, not on the itinerary.

Instead it’ll be all right angles from here on out, starting with these two weeks. He’s signed up for what he is starting to think of as a form of indentured servitude, working with his uncle to get some practical experience doing a remodeling job on the vacation home the man owns.

Jared sits in the driver’s seat of the car, Black Flag buzzing loudly through the speakers. Henry Rollins is telling him to annihilate this week, and Jared wishes he could be somewhere else, a bigger town where the lights stayed on past nine o’clock and the bouncers didn’t check fake ID’s too carefully. Not here, a place where everyone is bound to know everyone else and definitely sit up and take notice of an unfamiliar face.

Fewer than a dozen cars are parked along the curb, most of them near a brightly blue colored building, a bar whose customers are gathered in the large covered outdoor seating area. There are a few folks walking up and down the sidewalk, some kids about his age in wet suits and toting surfboards, their sun bleached hair stiff from seawater and their skin tanned summertime dark. An older man walks beside his dog, no leash, his open Hawaiian print shirt blowing backward, his scraggly hair tied in a thin ponytail. A regular Jimmy Buffett type, with a brown bottle held loosely in one fist and an ambling way about him.

In front of Jared’s car, a young man steps into the road with easy strides, eyes fixed on the ground in front of him, a guitar case swinging slightly in his grip. Jared slams on the brakes with both feet, feels the effect of a mainline of adrenaline as the car rocks to a quick halt. "Whoa," he says on an exhale, his hand hovering above the horn.

The guy looks up, offers a smile and a wave soon after, oblivious to the fact that he had almost become a hood ornament on a dark grey SUV. Jared just waves back, a little stunned and shooting a silent thank you up to the great unknown that he’s got the reflexes of a kid who spent most of his formative years playing video games. The man’s smile brightens for a second, then he continues across the street without another glance back.

He starts off again, more cautious this time and hardly bothering with the gas pedal, and turns down the road that will take him to his uncle’s place. The houses are few and far between, ocean shacks separated by dunes and tangles of dry grass, salt-worn paint peeling off of the siding in blue and grey, variations on a theme.

Jared counts the house numbers until he reaches a place slightly larger than the rest, a classic Cape Cod style only this one sits up on stilts and has a wide porch that stretches toward the back. A place built for living outside, somewhat better kept than the others surrounding it.

Muscles aching and his spine popping, he mostly falls out of the driver’s seat, limps to the back and opens the hatch to load himself up with his backpack and suitcase. Nightlife in this neck of the woods seems a little skimpy, and he’s wondering if his uncle has a room set up for him yet, whether he’s got cable.

It’s hot out, hotter than it had been at his last stop a couple hundred miles north of here. It’s muggy too, makes everything look a little hazy and indistinct, like looking through a fogged up lens, the way the light reflects through the water particles in the air. The air feels like it’s surrounding him, like it’s a real and tangible thing with a mind of its own, and it’s trying to wrap itself around his body. Jared’s immediately covered with a thin layer of sweat that makes his scalp itch beneath his knit cap and glues his dark t-shirt flush to his back, causes the scuffed up combat boots on his feet to feel heavy.

The air smells sweet, like flowers and there’s a layer of salt underneath it that grows stronger the closer he gets to the house. The front door stands open, a note in his Uncle Jeff’s handwriting has been taped to the peeling wooden screen that tells him to head on in and pick a room, that he’s gone to the mainland for some supplies and that he’ll be back soon.

It isn’t until he drops his bags on the floor inside the door and wanders to the elevated back porch that the smell of the ocean hits him full on. And it’s then that he realizes how much he’s missed it. Rivers, lakes, tidal bays, they just don’t have the same kinda pull, always have seemed a little dull in comparison. Jared stands on the porch, leans his forearms against the splintered old railing, listens to the rhythmic sound of the waves coming ashore and the constant dry rustle of dune grass.

Maybe this place won’t be so bad after all. Not even a little.

 

 

 

“Chris!” Jensen shuffles around sheet music, moves empty beer bottles from one spot to another and kicks at a couple of dirty t-shirts on the floor. A few seconds pass with no sound of footsteps from above, so Jensen tries again, puts a little more drill sergeant into his voice. “Chris!”

His fingers catch in the small tangles in his hair as he rakes his hands through it, and that surprises him. It’s not long, not by anyone’s definition, but it’s starting to grow out some, sticks out in sloppy corkscrews, clumpy and stiff from the saltwater he’d picked up during his afternoon surf.

He should get it cut. He probably won’t.

Seems like the second shout does the trick. Heavy footsteps clomp down the stairs and the door bangs open with enough force to rattle the glasses and plates in the corner of the open room that Jensen calls the kitchen.

“Have you seen my picks?” Jensen asks, not looking up. He’s tearing apart the sofa now, upends the cushions and throws the pillows on the floor. Sliding a hand along the back, his fingers snatch up a lost five dollar bill and he smiles. Bonus surprise beer money.

“Seriously, brother?” Chris says, incredulous. “The way you hollered, I thought the goddamn house was on fire.” His voice is rougher than usual, his speech a little slower, and Jensen spares a quick glance in his direction. His eyes are heavy and red, his long dark hair held in a sloppy, crooked knot at the base of his neck.

“You shouldn’t be sleeping, anyway,” Jensen replies, turning to shuffle through the drawer in the end table. “Waves are breaking beautiful down at the washout.”

“Really?” Chris asks, perking up some. “Why aren’t you down there?”

“Work.” The word comes out like a curse, which, in a way, it is. “I’m playing two sets tonight down at the Jetty. Thus I reiterate. The picks.”

Chris starts going through cupboards in the kitchen. “Yahtzee,” he says triumphantly.

Jensen turns toward him to see Chris starting to look through the drawers in the old scratched up hutch in the corner, only now he has a joint stuck safely behind his ear.

“Dude, that’s my last one,” Jensen groans.

“Call it a down payment on all that back rent you owe me.”

“About that,” Jensen begins, but Chris just dismisses it with a wave of his hand.

“Hit me up when you land that billion dollar record contract, or as soon as you design the perfect board that’s incapable of wiping out or something. Here you go.” He holds a pick between his fingers and snaps it across the room like it’s a bottle cap. It flies past Jensen’s head and hits the wall, lands behind the couch.

Jensen levels a withering look at the guy. “Fucker,” he mutters.

When Chris snaps another in his direction, Jensen’s hand shoots out and he catches it easily. “Nice reflexes,” he observes.

“Like a cat,” Jensen says with a grin, and heads toward the door.

“You may want to put on shoes.”

Jensen pauses, scrunches up his toes and eyes the flip-flops that rest right beside his door. “Nah,” he says with a shrug and a shake of his head.

“You have no idea where the floor of that bar has been,” Chris warns, clucking a spot-on impersonation of a mother hen.

“It’s not like I go around licking the soles of my feet.”

Chris nods. “Valid point,” he concedes. He pulls the joint from behind his ear and lights it, closing his eyes as he exhales the first hit. Jensen dashes over, snatches it from his fingers and takes a long drag before handing it back to him. Just for good luck.

“Knock ‘em dead tonight, kiddo,” Chris says as Jensen walks through the door.

“You’re not coming?”

“Dunno, maybe,” Chris says noncommittally as Jensen closes the door.

Jensen smiles as he ambles down the sidewalk and his feet hit the pavement. He knows he’ll be there. Chris never misses a show.

Rose, the housekeeper who sometimes shows up next door, is bent over the trunk of her car, loading a large bundle of dirty sheets and towels. Jensen sits down his guitar and lifts the vacuum into the back for her.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” Rose says. “Looks like you’ll be getting a new neighbor. The owner’s in town, and he’s bringing someone down with him to do some work on the place,” she goes on, her southern accent slow and smooth as honey.

“How long this time?” Jensen asks.

“Two weeks, maybe? Not sure,” she answers with a shrug.

The house that he and Chris share has the dubious distinction of having a rental home next door. There are only a few on this thin strip of land that they call home, and Chris hates it. After all, he’s a native of this place, born and bred with a base distaste for out-of-towners. Luckily, they don’t get a lot of those here, and Jensen honestly doesn’t mind it so much. The renters mostly keep to themselves, and on the rare occasions when they don’t, they’re almost always decent enough folks.

Rose wipes an arm across her sweaty forehead, smoothes her hands over stray hair on her temples. “Sure is blazing out here today.” She looks westward. “Hopefully a storm will blow through, knock some of this junk out of the air.”

Jensen follows her gaze. The sky is a hazy non-color that it always turns in the summertime here. It’s as if the sun has burned so hot and so long that it’s bleached the blue from the sky. “Maybe,” he mumbles.

“What? You don’t like the rain?” Her eyes are bright and curious. “Or maybe you don’t like storms?”

“Not really a fan, no,” he says, a little embarrassed. Truth is, he never used to mind them. But that was before. A lifetime ago.

She pats his arm reassuringly and nods. “It’s all that wind. I know it. But it’s like my mama used to say—wind is just a bunch of air that’s in a hurry to get somewhere else. That’s all. You get along now. Don’t want to iste your day talking to an old woman.”

“There’s nothing in this world I’d rather do, Rosie. But duty calls.” Jensen leans over and lifted his guitar case again. He sneaks in to land a kiss on her cheek before starting off again.

“Yeah, I’ve heard that one before,” she calls after him, and Jensen smiles to himself, her laughter follows him down the road.

The heat from the asphalt is almost but not quite too hot, and the sun on his shoulders feels good, eases that old nagging ache in his back. As he approaches the bar, he mentally catalogues his repertoire, building a set list in his head. Maybe he’ll try some new stuff out tonight, throw in a few of his original songs alongside the covers he usually plays for the Saturday night crowd.

A movement in his peripheral vision catches his attention, and Jensen looks up to see a dark SUV come to a stop beside him. He tosses a wave that way, and grins when the shadowy person in the car waves back.

 

 

 

Jared explores the main drag on foot, peeking into darkened shop windows. The only place that shows any signs of life is the Jetty, so he pushes past the batwing doors and bellies up to the bar. Thumbing through his wallet, he considers ordering a beer, but goes for a sweet tea instead.

There’s the hum of a guitar strumming in the back, random notes slowly gathering into the melody of a song Jared recognizes. He follows the sound past a set of dark, heavy curtains in the back and into another room. A small stage stands at the back and the room is dotted with tables. A single spotlight highlights the singer, his head bowed over his guitar as he sits on a barstool in the center of the stage. His bare feet are propped up on the rails, his knees poke through the holes in his worn jeans.

When the guy raises his head and starts to sing, Jared’s stomach drops as he pegs him for the man he’d nearly run over a few hours back, feels like it’s trying to drip through the gaps between the warped floorboards. He dives for an inconspicuous chair in the corner so fast that his iced tea sloshes over his fingers, makes them sticky with sugar and lemon.

Jared prefers punk to folk music, likes the pulling, pushing heartbeat of fast drums and a shredding guitar. Admittedly, he’s also a purist when it came to covering other people’s stuff, but there’s something about this cover, a slowed down honesty to the way the guy sings this song, like its spirit is still intact even though it sounds different. His rough voice reminds Jared of lonesome, far away dusty roads and too much time spent thinking. His guitar has seen it’s fair share of miles itself, various colored stickers pasted on to cover spots where the varnish has worn thin.

The song ends to scattered applause from the crowd, a few whistles and catcalls from a group of people gathered around a table right in front of the stage. The singer scans the room, squints past the spotlight, smiles and waves. When his eyes meet Jared’s, he seems to pause for a second. His grin slips a fraction, goes crooked and unsure, his hand stills and his eyes open wide for a split second. But then he seems to recover, places his guitar on the stand at the corner of the stage and salutes the back of the room like he’s got ten gold records under his belt and is playing a sold out gig at Madison Square Garden.

He steps off of the stage, stops at the crowded table to clink shot glasses with a shorter guy then downs three shots in a row. A young woman with dark hair and a wide, generous smile rises up on her toes to place a kiss on his cheek. His girlfriend, maybe, judging from the comfortable way he leans into her and drapes his arm across her shoulders, slides his thumb absently back and forth on the bare skin of her upper arm.

The noise level is growing proportional to the drop in the amount of liquor in the bottle on the table, and Jared watches them, maybe because they’re the most interesting thing going on in the place, and maybe because he’s a little lonely, missing his tiny group of old friends from back home and his new ones from school. And maybe because he can’t help but notice the way the guy’s eyes keep flickering toward him, latching on for a couple of seconds at a time.

There’s definitely something about him, something in the straight-backed way he holds himself, or how confidently he moves, or the way he looks everyone in the eye, bowing his head toward everyone, bringing them in a little closer as they speak.

Another flicker, and this time he catches Jared staring. He holds Jared there for a moment, shoots back another drink, one straight from the empty bottle this time, and walks over.

Jared sinks lower in his chair, glances backward even though he knows he’s backed up against the wall and there’s no one behind him.

“Have we met before?” he asks, squatting down beside Jared’s chair and placing a hand on the table for balance.

“Not really,” Jared says, forcing himself to maintain eye contact when his sight wants to wander down to the guy’s mouth, fixate on the way he draws his bottom lip through his teeth. When the man keeps quiet, Jared realizes he’s waiting for elaboration. “I saw you walking into town.”

“Okay,” the man replies. He blinks, shakes the puzzled expression from his face. Sticking out his hand, he continues, “I’m Jensen. Do you have a brother I may have known? A cousin or something?”

“I’m Jared. And no, not that I know of, anyhow.”

Jensen doesn’t seem convinced, and keeps peering at him, squinting with his head tipped to the side.

“Lucky, right?” Jared continues, more to escape Jensen’s scrutiny than anything.

“Huh?”

“Radiohead,” Jared says. “The song’s called ‘Lucky.’ The one you just played.”

“Oh, yeah.” Jensen’s tongue darts out, hits his bottom lip for a second and Jared’s mouth goes dry. “Are you sure?”

“It’s definitely called ‘Lucky’.”

“No, not the song. Your cousin. Maybe I’m a little drunk.” Jensen chuckles to himself and rubs a hand across his eyes. “Sorry, let’s start over, I’ll recap. Here’s what we know. You’re Jared, I’m almost positive I’m Jensen, you aren’t related to anyone I may or may not know, and you like Radiohead.”

“Well, who doesn’t? But you left out the part about being a little drunk,” Jared reminds him.

Jensen laughs outright then, a deep infectious sound that makes Jared smile right back at him. He claps Jared on the shoulder with enough force that it rocks him sideways a little. “I thought that was obvious.”

Another man, the guy who had served Jared his sweet tea earlier, comes up behind Jensen and grabs him by the shoulders. In a flash, Jensen stands and spins toward him, fingers pressed hard into the flesh of his upper arms. Jared’s never seen a person with that much alcohol in his bloodstream move so fast.

“Steve,” Jensen says, relieved as he flattens his hand in the center of Steve’s chest.

“So is my board ready yet?” Steve’s mouth is drawn down in a scowl, his eyebrows bunched, but his serious expression doesn’t stand a chance against Jensen’s grin.

“Meet Jared,” Jensen says. “He doesn’t have a cousin, and he likes Radiohead.”

“Who doesn’t like Radiohead?” Steve grins at Jared.

“My thoughts exactly,” Jared interjects.

“But don’t change the subject,” Steve says, facing Jensen once more.

“Soon, I swear,” Jensen groans.

“Dude. It is just a ding.”

“A ding? It is more like the Jolly Green Giant took a bite out of it.”

Steve ignores him and continues, “How soon is soon? Have you seen the waves out there?”

“You mean this afternoon? Did you see it? They were awesome. Perfect sets rolling a half mile out. Fucking _beautiful_.” Jensen gets a dreamy look in his eyes for a flash, then deflates when Steve sighs loudly and crosses his arms over his chest. “And I was out there when I should have been working on your board. I know, I know. Tomorrow. It’ll be ready tomorrow.”

Steve rolls his eyes and finally notices Jared’s empty glass. “Get you another?”

Jared shakes his head, tips his chin in the direction of the door.

“Leaving already?” Jensen asks.

“Early to rise,” Jared explains.

“Will I see you around?”

And then Jensen does that thing, tilts his head in close, glassy bright eyes peeking up at him, and Jared’s tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth in an unexpected way as his heart jumps up, starts beating all wrong in his chest.

To his right, Steve hums loudly, spins on his heel and walks over to the table where Jensen’s friends are still gathered, only quieter now and trying to not stare too openly.

Something’s going on, and Jared can’t suss out exactly what. It’s like he’s on the outside of an inside joke.

“Probably,” Jared answers finally, trying to sound casual rather than clumsy and tongue-tied. “This town’s only so big.”

“It’s plenty big enough. For me, anyway.” A shadow seems to darken his face for a moment, and it’s as if Jensen wants to say something else, something close, maybe private. But it’s gone in a blink, knocked out of the ballpark with a bright smile and a hand wrapped warm around Jared’s shoulder. “I’m playing here tomorrow. You should come. Drinks are on me.” With a final squeeze of his shoulder Jensen turns back to his friends.

Just as Jared is about to escape toward the door, Jensen calls after him, “Who the hell wears combat boots at the beach?”

Jared looks down at his feet, polishes the toe of one boot with the heel of the other. “I do.”

Jensen licks his finger and draws it through the air. A point in Jared’s favor, and already Jared’s wondering how he can earn another. “Fair enough.”

 

 

 

Half past six on a Saturday morning, and already Jared regrets picking this bedroom. It faces the ocean, with floor to ceiling windows that flank the doorway that opens directly onto the porch. The incontrovertible fact that the sun unfailingly rose in the east should have been a deciding factor, but had managed to escape his mind the day before.

To make matters worse, there’s the sound of work going on outside, some sort of drill or sander that by itself possibly could be ignored were it not combined with the blazing sunlight that pours through the sheer curtains at the windows. A bright light that is magnified by the white walls of his bedroom.

He stumbles toward the door, eyes squinted half shut, intent on closing the shutters on the porch and heading straight back to bed.

The early morning air gathers the skin on his bare chest into goose bumps as he crosses the threshold, the screen door banging loudly behind him. The high buzzing sound stops, and allows the rhythmic crash of the wages to take center stage.

Tall palmettos frame the house and mostly block the view of the neighbor’s place. Jared bends over the railing and leans far enough to nearly tip his balance, trying to catch sight of the person who’d been making the noise, but can only see vague flashes of movement.

The buzzing starts up again. Irritation flares hot and Jared marches down the wooden stairs, dune grass prickling the soles of his feet and his ankles and he crosses the short distance between the houses.

“Hey.” Jared’s shout dies in his throat before it ever really starts.

Jensen’s bent over a couple of sawhorses with a surfboard propped on top of them, turned partially away, a white mask hiding his nose and mouth. The early morning sunlight turns the tips of his messy hair lighter, reflects off of the thin layer of white dust that surrounds him.

Jared freezes, can’t do much but stand and stare, watch the way the muscles in Jensen’s upper arms and back shift beneath his shirt as he works the sander over the surfboard. Try and play the Rorschach game with the dark patch of sweat that has formed on the back of his light grey t-shirt.

His shirt hikes up as Jensen reaches a little further across the board and puts the small of his back on display, one perfect cut of hipbone and now there’s a bell-clear fantasy building in Jared’s head, one that involves finding out exactly how well his hand would fit over that particular jut of bone.

Jared bites down hard on his tongue when Jensen turns to him, cuts off the sander and says “Hey,” as if it’s perfectly normal to have a veritable stranger staring at his ass in his back yard well before the day has even gotten its land legs.

He removes his mask, drops it to dangle around his neck. “So it’s him,” Jensen continues. “I mean it’s you. Jared. You’re him.” Jensen lets his gaze travel downward, lingering for a second on Jared’s bare chest before coming back up to meet his eyes.

Embarrassed, Jared crosses his arms, drops them, then crosses them again. “I think it’s me, or, ah, him. Little too early to tell,” Jared answers, and it’s like he’s come in halfway through a conversation that he had no hope of understanding in the first place.

“Well, I hope you’re you. Otherwise that would be awkward.” Jensen frowns for a second, gives Jared the opportunity to entertain the notion that Jensen’s probably still a little drunk from the night before, despite his clear eyes and sure movements. Or perhaps he always talks in circles, which will make things interesting.

“I guess it would be awkward?” Jared says. It came out as a question.

“What I’m trying to say—badly it would appear—is that you’re the new guy. Next door,” Jensen finishes hiking a thumb in the direction of Jared’s place.

Jared chuckles in relief. Hang around long enough, and Jensen may eventually start to make sense, he’s certain of it. “Word sure does get around fast around here.”

Jensen waves his hand toward the ocean, “There are hardly a dozen houses on this stretch of beach. You tend to notice when something changes.”

The expanse of beach is deserted, only a couple of sets of footprints in the compressed sand to show that anyone is ever there. In the distance, Jared can barely make out a lone figure standing near the surf. Perhaps someone’s fishing. Too far away to be sure.

“Is it always this empty?” Jared asks.

“It’s a busy day if I see twenty people on the beach all day. You’ll see more folks down at the washout,” he points north. “Best surfing on the island. In the whole state, if you ask me.” Turning back to the surfboard, Jensen wipes a hand across the freshly sanded patch. “A ding,” he says to himself, then laughs, a low husky sound. “First coat of paint, and then I think I’ll go for a swim. Wanna join me?”

Jared squinted at the water, then shook his head. “I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me.”

“Work?” Jensen asks, raising his eyebrows and fiddling with a setting on a paint sprayer.

“A day full of demo. I’m helping my uncle with some remodeling next door,” he hikes his thumb over his shoulder. “Knocking down walls, putting up new ones. Basically I’m on board to make sure the roof doesn’t cave in on him. A swim does sound nice, though.”

“If you go later, don’t go by yourself,” Jensen warns. “There are rumors of big fish.” He holds his arms a few feet apart.

“Big fish?”

“With fins,” he adds. “Sharks. Have someone keep an eye out for you.” Jensen places the mask back over his nose and mouth, runs a hand one more time over the repair in the surfboard and starts painting.

“Sharks?”

“Little ones mostly, but I won’t say they don’t eat much.” Jensen waves him away. “Get to work. The days get hot around here real quick.”

The smell of coffee and breakfast cooking greets Jared as he returns to the house. He grabs his old Misfits t-shirt and pulls it over his head as he makes his way to the kitchen.

His uncle’s sitting at the kitchen table, newspaper spread out before him and a steaming cup of coffee sitting across from him. “You’re up early,” Jeff notes as Jared scrapes the chair back and slumps down in it.

“Not by choice,” Jared says.

“That kid next door,” Jeff says knowingly. “Buy yourself a set of earplugs.”

“So this morning isn’t a one time deal?”

“Not by a long shot. He’s always got something going on. And he’s an early riser.”

“Good to know,” Jared groans and takes a sip of coffee.

“So, Mr. Future Frank Lloyd Wright, where do we start?” Jeff asks, waving a hand expansively toward the living room.

“This place was built in the thirties, right?” Jared says, trying to dredge up everything he’s ever learned about the colonial revivalist building style. He’d learned about it in an eight o’clock class. He’s kinda screwed.

“Thirty-three, I believe,” Jeff tells him.

“So I don’t suppose you have the original blueprints.” It isn’t actually a question.

“You’re two for two.”

“Then it’s back to the drawing board. Literally,” Jared says. “I’ll get my drafting supplies.”

“I always knew you were a good kid.” Jeff grins, white flash of teeth buried behind his beard. “No matter what your mother says about you.”

 

 

 

“Looking good there.” The screen door slams behind Chris as he inspects the paint job on Steve’s surfboard. He has his wetsuit on, half unzipped in the back with the top hanging loose around his hips. He hands Jensen a cup of coffee, tendrils of steam rising lazily from it.

“I give Steve three weeks until it’s back, if I’m lucky,” Jensen replies. “Guy couldn’t manage to avoid the sand bar out there if his life depended on it. Sometimes I think he actually aims for it. He should really get a spare board.” Jensen takes a sip of coffee, eyes rolling back at the taste, black, hot and strong. Just right. “You’re up early.”

“Or late. Depends on who you ask.” Chris grins at him.

As if on cue, the sound of a car engine jumping to life in front of the house cuts through the quiet of the morning. There’s a telltale rattle as the driver shifts between first and second gears. Jensen recognizes it immediately.

“Beth?”

“You got good ears, brother.”

“I’m a musician, it’s what I get paid good money to do. Or in my case, not so good money. Whiskey’s free though. But Beth? Again?” Jensen jabs Chris in the shoulder. “That’s more than two times. Maybe four, even. Damn near a marriage proposal in your book.”

“I hate you.” Chris glowers at him.

“I hate you more.”

“Sure you do. I heard you talking to someone this morning,” Chris says, changing the subject so fast Jensen almost bitches about whiplash.

“I met the neighbors. Or one of them. The temporary one. Again, I suppose.”

“The day you start consistently making sense is the day I sprout wings and fly the hell away,” Chris shakes his head. “The temporary one?”

“Yeah. The guy from the bar last night. Jared.” Jensen tries to hide the smile that creeps across his face. He likes the name, likes the lazy shape of it in his mouth.

“Whoa, slow down there. I’ve seen that look before, brother,” Chris says, a warning through and through.

“What look?” Jensen says innocently.

“That one.” He shoots a finger in Jensen’s direction. “And it hardly ever ends up good.”

“Give me a little credit, Chris. He’s not gonna be here long, and I’m not an idiot.”

“You just make sure it stays that way.” Chris brings the topic to a close as quickly as it had come up. He goes over to the rack of surfboards next to the house, runs his hand along each one almost lovingly.

“It’s calm out there today,” Jensen says as he stares toward the shore, sipping his coffee. “Good day for the long board. Easy to get it past the breakers.” He tips his head back for a moment, lets the sound of the surf and the warmth of the sun wash over him.

Chris comes up beside him, stands close, reaches out to put a warm hand on the back of Jensen’s neck. They both stand silently, watch as the sun creeps a little higher over the sea.

Jensen has seen a bit of the world in his day, more of it than he’ll readily admit to, more of it than most. But nothing he’s ever seen could come close to this place, not by a long shot.

Finally breaking the silence, Chris says, “Kinda makes you wonder why people have to go into a church to pray, y’know? When there’s someplace like this in the world.”

“Amen.” Jensen smiles.

 

 

 

Jared walks along the shoreline, picking at a loose flap of skin on his palm. His hands are sore where new calluses are forming, the shape of a sledgehammer’s handle wearing its way into his palms.

He takes off his shirt, formerly black but now a definite shade of gray due to a thick layer of plaster dust, and tucks it into the back waistband of his cargo shorts.

The sand is afternoon hot, burning into the soles of his feet, and Jared veers toward the water. With the waves lapping at his ankles, he crouches down and runs his forearm beneath the surf. He’s got a red, irritated patch of skin from where he’d tangled with some insulation earlier in the day and the saltwater stings. He’s thinking of kitchen medicine, how his mamma once told him that saltwater can cure just about anything and so he keeps at it.

A shadow falls over him, and in his peripheral vision Jared sees a surfboard being planted next to him in the sand.

“Ouch,” Jensen says, bending over him with his hands on his knees. His hair is spiked up sloppy and wet, small streaks of water still running in trails down his wetsuit. He pulls Jared’s arm out straight and says, “Fiberglass.”

“Yeah,” Jared replies. “How’d you know?”

“Had the worst fiberglass burn of my life from an old and sadly mistreated surfboard one time. Right here.” Jensen runs a hand along the inside of Jared’s thigh in a way that makes Jared’s breath catch in his throat and spreads a slow, warm sensation all over his skin. His cheeks start to feel hot, and it’s not just from the sunshine.

If Jensen notices, he doesn’t let on. “There’s only one way to take care of it. You’ve gotta get the fiberglass out before the itch sets in. C’mon.” He grabs his board and starts back in the direction of his house.

Jared gapes for a few seconds. His wetsuit leaves precious little to the imagination, and Jared stares at his wide back, the gentle taper into his thin waist, the roll of his hips as he walks with his surfboard tucked beneath one arm. Then there are his shoulders, and well, Jared is goddamn confident that he could write a dissertation on the man’s shoulders. Might even be able to apply three years of architecture training to the endeavor.

Jensen glances behind him, smirks as he catches Jared’s stare. “Hey, you coming?”

Jared scrambles to catch up, the sand clinging uncomfortably to his wet feet and clumping between his toes. Jensen starts up the dun leading to their houses in easy strides and Jared falls even further behind, slips backward a bit as he struggles up the slope.

“Put those legs to use, Stretch,” Jensen calls to him, deepening his voice, putting some force behind it, and Jared swore he sounded just like a drill sergeant. The change is surprising. Goddamn sexy, too.

“Shut up,” Jared pants as he reaches the top.

“Now you’re talking.” Jensen goes to the rack next to his house, props his board in an empty slot. “Cop a squat,” he waves to a couple of chairs, and takes the steps leading up to his door two at a time. He disappears into the house, emerging after a minute with a couple of beers between the fingers of one hand and a roll of duct tape in the other.

Jared doesn’t know exactly what Jensen has planned, but he’s certain he doesn’t like the looks of it.

Jensen pulls his chair across from Jared’s, opens one of the bottles and hands it over. The other one he holds against the red patch on Jared’s arm. When he catches Jared’s doubtful look he says, “Field medicine.”

“Beer and duct tape?” Jared asks.

“Don’t knock it. It’ll cure what ails ya.” He removes the bottle, presses his palm to Jared’s arm for a second, seems satisfied and pops the beer open, taking a long swig before tearing off a couple of strips of tape. “The cold from this bottle will constrict the skin and stop the fibers from working in deeper,” he explains. Before Jared can protest, Jensen slaps a piece of tape to the spot. “The tape will yank ‘em out. And _that_ bottle,” he nods toward the beer Jared’s holding, “will make it so that you don’t hate me too much when it’s all says and done. Drink up, kiddo.” He places a finger at the bottom of Jared’s beer and tips it up toward his lips.

Jared takes a long pull from the bottle, sputters and hisses, “Son of a bitch,” when Jensen yanks the tape off without warning. He run his fingers along the spot. Sure, the prickly feeling is gone, but it’s been replaced with a burning sting. Jared thinks that maybe Jensen’s going for some sort of diversionary tactic, make him forget about the pain in his arm by putting a bigger one in its place. “Where’d you learn how to do this, anyhow?”

Jensen flashes a heart-stopping grin and smoothly avoids the question. “You’d be surprised what you can do with limited resources. I once fixed a guy’s transmission with a sawed off broomstick and a bungee cord.”

When Jared rolls his eyes, Jensen waves a finger at him. “True story. Dude drove it like that for another twenty thousand miles.” There’s another flicker; another one of those shadows moving across Jensen’s face and that small slip of his smile.

But the look passes quickly, makes Jared wonder if it was ever there at all. Jensen finishes off his beer, licks his bottom lip with a loud, satisfied exhale. “I gotta get ready,” he says, pushing up from the chair. “You coming tonight?” Jensen asks, eyes wide and hopeful.

“Maybe?”

“Drinks are on me,” Jensen reminds him.

“About that,” Jared begins, looking down at his hands, embarrassed. “I’m a few weeks shy of legal,” he admits.

Jensen shrugs it off. “You’re with me, which means you’re with the band. Such as it is. A different set of rules apply. Besides, Chris, my roommate, he’s in tight with the owners of the place. Blind eye and all that. You should come, that way I know that at least three people will show up. Well, one of them works at the bar, so he’s sort of contractually obligated to be there.” Jensen heads toward the back door, pulling the zipper to his wetsuit down by the cord as he goes, exposing the tanned, freckled expanse of his upper back. “I’m on at nine. Which usually means ten,” Jensen calls from the doorway. “See you then.”

 

 

 

“Good set tonight,” Chris greets Jensen with a slap to the back as Jensen steps down from the stage.

Steve slides past them, collecting empty glasses and bottles from the tables. “Good show,” he agrees. “ _Long_ show,” he adds with a wink to Jensen.

Jensen grabs the beer Chris is holding, takes a sip from the bottle and hands it back to him. He swallows slowly, uses it as an excuse to keep his mouth shut.

He scans the room, waves a couple of times as people tip their glasses toward him, a smile plastered to his face. It’s the usual Sunday night crowd of old school surfers, full of sun bleached hair and deep dark tans, familiar faces all around, but not the familiar face he’d been hoping to see. Someone’s missing. It shouldn’t be a big deal. He tries to convince himself that it isn’t. It shouldn’t be. Screw it, maybe it is.

Chris looks at Jensen, over to Steve as he heads behind the bar, and then back to Jensen again. “Something you’re not telling me?” he asks.

“I’m an open book,” Jensen replies.

“You and I both know that’s bullshit,” Chris says, planting a hand on his hip and shifting his weight between his feet.

“Maybe I’m just a little off tonight.” It isn’t a lie. Or at least it’s pretty damned close to the truth.

The change in Chris is immediate. A worried crease between his eyebrows and he takes Jensen by the wrist, thumb pressed lightly to the inside, like he’s about to take his pulse. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Jensen says and shakes free of Chris’s hold. “Yes,” he repeats, a little more definite the second time around. “It’s not that—“

“Hey you,” a voice pipes up from behind him and a set of tanned arms wrap around his waist from behind. The soothing smell of vanilla fills Jensen’s nose and he grins. A real one this time.

“Sophie,” he says, and plants a kiss to the top of her head.

“New song tonight. Second to last one,” she says. “I _like_ it.” She gives him an impish smile. “Your boy’s got the voice of an angel,” she tells Chris in a teasing, singsong voice.

Jensen laughs. “Yeah, the voice of an angel who’s spent too much time breathing sand and fiberglass, and who’s had cheap booze burn his throat to hell and back more times than he can count.”

“Look who’s here,” Sophia says to Chris, nodding over her shoulder.

Chris is still staring at Jensen, cool and clinical, like he’s about to pin him up like a butterfly or put him under a microscope. He blinks a couple of times, shifts his gaze to see Beth standing at the bar, and his expression softens. “Don’t think you’re getting out of this,” he says to Jensen, handing him what’s left of his beer.

As Chris shoulders past him, Jensen hums a few bars of ‘Here Comes the Bride,’ opening his eyes wide and innocent when Chris mutters something Jensen’s probably better off not hearing.

“What’s up with him?” Sophia asks when Chris moves out of earshot.

Jensen just waves it away and drains the bottle. “You know how he is. Meaner than a mother bear with a thorn in her paw.” He bends over and hefts his guitar case.

It isn’t much of an answer, but Sophia lets it slide. “Care to walk a gal home?” she asks instead, threading an arm through Jensen’s.

Jensen steers them toward the bar. “I’d be honored,” he says, “but give me a second.”

Ducking behind the bar, Jensen takes a napkin from the stack, fishes around the register until he finds a pen and scribbles out a short note. He finds a five-dollar bill in his pocket and turns to find Steve eyeing him curiously.

“Do me a favor?” Jensen says, handing the money over.

“Sure thing,” Steve starts, then folds the money and shoves it into the waistband of Jensen’s jeans. “But your money’s no good around here.”

Jensen starts to protest, but Steve holds up both hands. “Call it a down payment on fixing my board.”

“You already paid me,” Jensen points out.

“This is for the next time.” Steve looks at the napkin Jensen set down on the bar and nods thoughtfully. He reaches above his head for a glass then trails his fingers across the row of bottles. They stop along the top shelf at a bottle of whiskey.

“The good stuff,” Jensen says.

“Nothing but the best, my friend,” Steve replies.

 

 

 

Jared stretches, rolls over in bed and cracks an eye open. It’s dark. Really dark. He looks at the clock.

“Shit,” he mutters, feet hitting the floor. “Crap.” He rakes a hand through the tangles in his hair and blinks at the clock for a second, waiting for it to change its mind. It sticks to its guns, adamantly declares that it’s well past midnight. “Oh, crap.” Tripping across the room, he grabs his knit hat, shoves it onto his head and finds his keys. “Shit,” Jared adds again just in case the universe isn’t sure where he stands.

Jeff’s asleep sitting up on the couch in the living room, head tilted sideways in a way that looks like it would really hurt in the morning. Jared tiptoes past him, checks to make sure the door is unlocked before closing it softly behind himself.

Jared curses himself again on general principle as he starts his car and gets it rolling. He’d meant to go to Jensen’s show. He really had. But the one beer that Jensen had given him turned into three more from his uncle, and with a belly full of supper, his bed had turned into an undeniable siren calling out to him, and a one hour nap had turned into more sleep than he’d perhaps gotten his entire freshman year at college.

Dashing through the doorway to the bar, Jared slides past a man with long dark hair and startling pale eyes. Jared recognizes him as one of the guys from the night before. He looks up at Jared, seems to pause for a split second before the woman at his side drags him outside by the elbow.

The place is oddly subdued, even for a Sunday, and Jared’s stomach sinks in disappointment at the absolute lack of music coming from the back. There are only a few folks sitting at the bar and a handful of people scattered at the tables.

Steve is drying and stacking glasses behind the bar, and nods to Jared as he walks over, taking in his swollen, bloodshot eyes. “Rough night?” Steve asks.

“Nowhere near it, actually,” Jared answers. “Jensen left.” It isn’t a question. “And I’m an asshole.” That also isn’t a question.

“You just missed him, and you’re probably not.”

Blinking, Jared says, “Huh?” Nobody makes sense around here. Has to be something in the air.

“An asshole. Jensen’s a pretty good judge of character, believe it or not, so I’d bet you’re probably not an asshole. Anyway, he left with Sophia about five minutes ago. Here,” Steve says, sliding a shot across the bar to Jared. “He left this for you in case you showed.”

Jared picks it up, sees a note written in neat, slanted capital letters on the cocktail napkin.

_Better late than never. No worries. –J._

He knocks back the shot, folds up the napkin and shoves it in his front pocket.

Steve pretends not to notice. “You could probably catch up with them,” he says. “They’re walking back to her place over on Arctic. It’s a block up from your road.”

“Maybe,” Jared says. He licks the traces of whiskey off of his bottom lip. It tastes good. Smooth. Expensive. “Do you have his number?”

Steve laughs. “Jensen? He doesn’t have a cell phone. I’m not even sure he has a _television._ Get you another?” He holds up the shot glass.

Jared shakes his head. “Is drinking all you guys do around here?”

Steve holds his arms out expansively, looking around the bar. “When in Rome,” he says. “Besides, it’s not like we’ve got a movie theater or anything.” He pours himself a shot in Jared’s glass and drinks it. “But no. We also surf.” Planting his forearms on the bar and leaning in toward Jared, Steve’s expression turns serious. “Listen, go find Jensen. He waited around for a while here for you, kept on tagging extra songs onto the end of his set, just in case you’d show.”

Jared considers it. It’s bad enough that he’d missed Jensen, even though he technically never said he was coming. Missing the show is one thing, but to top it off by showing up just in time to cockblock him would be downright unforgiveable. “I’d just be a third wheel,” he tells Steve.

“Far from it, trust me,” Steve replies. “Now get outta here.”

 

 

 

 

_I'll teach you how to jump on the wind's back, and then away we go_.

 

By the time he gets to his car and turns the engine on, he’s convinced himself to go home and go back to bed. Which is why he’s fairly surprised when he makes the left turn a block too soon and finds himself driving slowly up the street, eyes straining to see into the darkness beyond the reach of the low beams.

As he comes to a stop sign, Jared catches sight of a couple of folks a few blocks down the road. A woman leans against the side of a car, a man standing close to her with his back turned toward Jared, a baseball cap turned backward on his head. Bare feet poke out beneath the cuffs of the man’s jeans.

The woman—Jared assumes it’s Sophia—pushes herself off of the car, and Jensen leans down to kiss her briefly on the mouth. He takes his hat off and places it on her head. Jared stares, chewing on the inside of his cheek as Jensen trails his hand along her arm before she turns to head up her sidewalk. It’s a familiar gesture. Intimate and close.

Jared’s mouth twists as he tries his best to shove away thoughts of Jensen’s mouth and how Jensen’s hands would feel wrapped around his upper arm. It’s jealousy through and through and Jared hates the taste of it. He’d just met this guy yesterday, has spent maybe a total of an hour’s worth of time with him, and still can’t get him out of his head.

But it isn’t as if Jensen ran hot and cold with him. It also isn’t as if Jared had covered a lot of ground with this kinda thing—he’d had a few hook-ups over the last couple years of school, and a couple of relationships that had stalled out before they’d really gotten started—but Jared likes to think that he’s aware enough to know when he’s being flirted with and when he isn’t. He touches his thigh, traces the place where Jensen had briefly slid his hand earlier this afternoon, decides Jensen runs more like hot and even hotter.

No one’s there to see it, but Jared flips his turn signal on anyway, starts the slow roll back to his street. One last glance up the road and Jared finds Jensen staring at his truck, a hand held above his eyes as he tries to see past the headlights. Jensen takes a couple of steps toward him and Jared groans. Busted. Time to fess up.

Slamming the shifter into park, he gets out and leans against the open door. Jensen waves, breaks into a slow jog, his guitar case swinging by his side.

“I’m not stalking you. Really,” Jared says once Jensen is a few yards away.

“Wouldn’t mind it if you were,” Jensen shoots back, props his guitar case on his foot and crosses his arms on the top of it.

Definitely more like hot and even hotter.

“Sorry I missed you tonight. Or earlier. Your show,” Jared says, tongue-tied and awkward all over again and wondering if Jensen has this sorta effect on everyone, or if it’s reserved for him alone.

“Best show I’ve ever played.” Jensen shrugs, casts a sly, sideways glance in his direction.

Jared groans, shoves his hat a little further down on his head.

“Epic. That’s what it was.” A slow grin lights up his face. “The band was on fire. Literally.”

“You had a band? Shit, man. I’m—“

But Jensen just keeps going, talking through him. “Yeah, we even had dancing girls and a sword swallower. And then Jimi Hendrix came up on stage and ripped apart ‘Voodoo Child.’ Ripped it apart at the _seams._ ” Jensen’s eyes are bright, a light dancing behind them.

“You’re an ass,” Jared says, and punches Jensen lightly on the shoulder.

“You’re starting to catch on.” Jensen walks toward the passenger side of the truck, opens the back door without invitation and shoves his guitar in the back, then climbs into the passenger seat.

Jared gets into the car, looks over to Jensen and asks, “So where we going?”

“Not home. That’s for sure. I’m in no mood to lay in bed listening to Chris do...whatever it is that Chris does,” Jensen explains. Jared stares at him, watches as Jensen traces a finger along his lower lip, thinking. “Alright,” he says finally. “I got it.”

Jared’s hand is resting on the shifter in the center, and Jensen covers it with his own, pushes the car into drive. “Forward,” he says, swiping his thumb over the top of Jared’s hand for second before taking it away. “Second star to the right and straight on ‘till morning.”

“We’re going to Neverland?” Jared asks.

Jensen grins at him, full blown, all out. Without a doubt the hottest thing that Jared’s ever seen. “Thereabouts.”

“Sound’s good to me,” Jared says, gripping the steering wheel so hard with his other hand that he fully expects to see a dent in it when he lets go.

A couple of turns later, and Jared finds himself driving down the coastal road, a sand dune blocking the view of the sea to his left and low laying wetlands to his right.

Jensen keeps up a constant stream of conversation, pointing out landmarks that read like a roadmap of the time he’s spent on this small strip of land.

He leans over toward Jared, pressing a hand to Jared’s thigh for balance as he points toward a spot out of the driver’s side window. Their shoulders bump and Jared can feel Jensen’s breath on his neck and damn, Jensen smells good, like summertime, saltwater and sun warmed skin.

“That’s the place, right there in the marsh,” Jensen begins. “Steve and I went four wheeling in his old jeep this one time. Had to have been almost ten years ago. I don’t think that Steve even had his license yet. I know I didn’t. We spun out, got sucked down into the muck and all the fluff, y’know from the cattails?”

Jared nods, hums and peers at the spot where Jensen’s pointing.

“We had to hoof it all the way back into town. A tow truck driver tried to pull us out, couldn’t do it. The fire chief called in this tractor thing, and that finally did the trick. The jeep had fish swimming through it. Fucking _fish_ , Jared. All these little minnows in the foot wells. I remember Steve just got right back into that car. Son of a bitch started up on the second try.” Jensen chuckles at the memory. “We drove it home that night. Damn, I miss that jeep.”

Jared tries to keep one eye on the road and the other on Jensen. His face is lit and shadowed by the blue glow from the car’s control panel, his smile bright as sunshine, laugh lines creeping from the corners of his eyes. He wants to reach over and touch them. Jesus, this man is beautiful.

He’s a goner. Truthfully, he never really stood a chance in the first place.

“You’re about to run out of road,” Jensen says. “Pull over here.”

“Are you sure?” Jared squints through the windshield. There isn’t a shoulder to speak of, only a soft sandy stripe that runs between the dunes and the blacktop. “It’s alright to park here?”

Jensen makes a show of looking around. “Who’s around to complain?” He gets out of the car as soon as Jared pulls to a stop and spins to face him, hands gripping the open window before shoving off. “You coming, city boy?”

There’s a constant breeze blowing off of the ocean, cool, and when Jared licks his lips he tastes salt. It whips at Jared’s t-shirt, tousles the hair that spills out from beneath his cap, tickles the back of his neck a little.

“Where are you taking us?” Jared pants as Jensen leads them up the steep dune toward the beach.

As they reach the top, Jensen says, “There,” and starts on the downward slope.

There’s a wide jetty jutting out into the ocean. Jared can see the white foam from the breakers as they crash along the rocks. At the end sands a lighthouse, an inky silhouette against the dark sky.

“Best view on the island,” Jensen says as they approach the jetty, bending to roll up the cuffs of his jeans. “Better lose the boots, though,” he goes on, nodding at Jared’s feet. “High tide. It’s a little wet out there.”

Jensen drops to his knees in front of Jared, grabs the backs of his thighs for a second and now Jared has enough material to fuel a decade’s worth of jack-off fantasies, maybe more. Jensen loosens Jared’s boots, fingers smart and quick on the laces. Jared struggles for balance as Jensen lifts one of his feet up to pull the boot off, has to place his palm on the crown of Jensen’s head to stop from toppling over, feels the spiky slip of Jensen’s hair between his fingers and adds that to the list as well.

Nimble and sure-footed, Jensen scampers up the rocks toward the lighthouse. “Pay attention to where I walk,” he tells Jared. “Follow my footsteps. Some of these are loose and I don’t want to have to explain to anyone how you wacked your head wide open. It would be a really shitty way for everybody to start out the week.”

The boulders are slippery, some covered in algae, and Jared keeps his eyes fixed on Jensen’s easy, confident movements, tries to stay only a step or two behind him. A couple of times he comes dangerously close to losing his balance, arms cartwheeling and hips tilting sideways, but then Jensen is there, a steady, strong hand on his arm to balance him out.

Jared breathes a relieved sigh when they make to the base of the lighthouse. “So they don’t light it anymore?” he asks, feeling a little dizzy as he looks up at the dark glass dome.

“Been decades since it was used.” Jensen is slowly working his way around the cylindrical building, running a hand along the large stone blocks. “Here we go,” he says, prying a stone loose with the tips of his fingers and reaching inside the hole it left behind.

“How did you know that was there?” Jared stared at him, amazed.

“When you’re a kid growing up here, you learn to make your own fun.” Jensen shrugs. “Besides, Chris has an uncle who used to work maintenance here. He told us about it years ago. Doubt he even remembers.”

They make their way back to the heavy iron door, and Jensen unlocks the weathered padlock securing it. After a few pulls the door opens with a rusty grating sound.

It’s almost pitch black inside, and Jared listens blindly to the echoes of Jensen’s bare footfalls as he moves around the small space. “Yahtzee,” Jensen says at last, his voice bouncing off of the walls as he lights a flashlight and points it upward. “After you,” Jensen holds his hand toward a narrow iron staircase that spirals up to the top.

“How many stairs are there?” Jared asks doubtfully.

“Two hundred and one.”

“Really?” Jared says, dragging his feet a little as he looks up.

“Yup.”

Jensen flashes him a smile, and Jared decides right then and there that he’d probably circumnavigate the goddamn globe blindfolded and barefooted if Jensen’s the one leading the way. “Better get started then,” Jared says.

“Yup.”

By the time they reach the top landing of the main gallery, Jared’s fairly confident that his lungs are legitimately on fire and that he might never walk again. As he bends at the waist and tries to catch his breath, Jensen uses the same key to unlock the door to the balcony.

Jared breathes deep as he steps out onto the metal walkway, clearing his lungs of the musty interior air as he leans heavily on the railing. His head spins some when he looks down. He’s not usually afraid of heights but he’s willing to make an exception in this case. Jensen seems unfazed, stepping up to the lower rung of the railing and leaning over.

“Hey,” Jared says, a stab of adrenaline hitting him, and he grips Jensen’s hip for a second. “Be careful.”

“Why’s everyone always telling me to be careful?” Jensen asks, looking down at him, a tiny, fond curl to his mouth. “I _surf_ , Jared,” he explains. “Balance is the one thing I’ve got. Might be the only thing.” To prove it, he lets go of the railing and holds his arms out wide, stays like that for a few moments, as the wind pushes his shirt snug to his chest, and then easily hops down to the walkway, landing with a hollow, metallic thud.

The entire strip of land is visible from up here. In the distance, Jared can see the line of lights on the bridge leading onto the island. The glow on the horizon from the mainland turns the sky a distant rosy color. He can see faint spots of light over the water, scattered ships far out at sea.

Jared stands, arms propped on the railing, shivering a little from the chill in the wind and the early hour. Jensen comes up beside him, places a hand on the small of his back and points out a spot south of them on the beach. “See that other jetty down there? The second one to the south?”

Jared hums, squinting to see through the darkness to the telltale signs of the sea spray breaking over the rocks.

“Remember that hurricane that blew through here about ten years back? Can’t remember the name. Floyd maybe? Or maybe it was Isabelle.”

“I guess so,” Jared answers. The names sound familiar.

“The storm surge came in, washed out the entire southern end of the island, from that spot on down. It was something to see, the ocean heading right into the sound over here. It was days and days before the water went back out.”

“You were out in it?” Jared says incredulously.

“Out in it? We fucking _surfed_ it.” He lets out a low bark of laughter. “It was Chris’s idea.”

“He sounds suicidal,” Jared says.

“He can be one crazy son of a bitch,” Jensen agrees. “He’s also one of the best people I’ve ever known, and I’ve known quite a few.”

Jared stretches, tries to stifle a yawn without much success.

“Let’s get you home,” Jensen says, turning away. “Morning shows up early around here.”

 

 

 

Jensen’s quieter, a bit more subdued on the drive back to their houses. Part way through the ride he leans forward, turns on the radio and mutters a curse when Fugazi punches fast and loud from the speakers.

Jared jumps, apologizes, and quickly turns it down.

“That’ll wake you up,” Jensen says. “It’ll also make your ears bleed.”

“Yeah, kinda the point. Not much for DC hardcore, huh?”

Jensen doesn’t answer, and instead he fiddles with the buttons, finds some mellow folk song broadcasting from some college radio station over on the mainland. He slides down in the seat, rests his feet up on the dashboard and sings quietly along, fingers drumming out the rhythm on his leg.

“And this will put you to sleep.” Jared rolls the window down, letting in more of the cool, early morning air.

Jensen smiles at him in a soft, easy way that makes him look ten years younger. “Yeah,” he says, “kinda the point.”

Jared’s uncle’s place is still dark when they pull up, so is Jensen’s, and the two of them walk quietly between the houses. There’s a low glow just starting to the east, a false dawn that turns the sky a shade lighter than the ocean, only a slight contrast above the water.

Jared takes a couple of reluctant steps toward the back stairs leading up to his room. “So,” he says as he leans against the railing post, “you playing again tomorrow?”

Jensen shakes his head. “No, it’s a weekend gig. Strictly part-time. Everything I do is part-time, come to think of it. I never can stand to do too much of any one thing.”

Birds are starting to sing, calling out the morning. Jared’s eyes are gritty, his limbs weighed down with sleepiness, he feels that particular brand of nausea that comes with too little sleep, and god, he doesn’t want watch Jensen walk away, even if it is only one door over. “You gonna be around the next couple of days?” he asks, afraid to lend words to this pathetic crush he’s working on.

“I’ll be here and there. I’m heading into town at some point in the next few. Pick up some stuff,” Jensen answers vaguely. “Thanks for showing up tonight,” he says, coming a little closer and staring up at Jared, an unexpected look of curiosity in his eyes.

Jared jams his hands into the pockets of his shorts, hunches his shoulders some and stares at his feet. “Yeah, late.”

“Late is fine by me.” Jensen takes another step closer, runs a hand along the back of Jared’s neck. “I…” He falters, tilts his head to the side and blinks slow. Jared’s fists clench tighter in his pockets, his fingernails digging into the flesh of his palms. His heart jumps into his throat and he licks his lips nervously. Because maybe. Maybe.

“I, ah,” Jensen tries it again and finally gives up, tugs gently on Jared’s neck, draws him down and kisses him. Chaste, warm. Just like that. He pulls back a little, dives toward Jared once more, a small taste of his tongue sliding against Jared’s own this time, sweet and shy. Jared tips a bit forward, follows Jensen with his open mouth as Jensen takes a small step backward.

Jared breathes a stuttering, quiet gasp, wonders what sorta force is keeping his knees in check, locked in place. His hands are still in his pockets and he regrets the lost opportunity, should have latched onto Jensen’s shoulders or hips or something when he’d had the chance. “So…” Jared manages.

Jensen stares at him for a handful of heartbeats, then offers up a crooked smile. “Just testing a theory,” he says. He snatches the hat from Jared’s head and shoves it onto his own, then spins on his heel and charts a course back toward his house.

It takes a second for Jared to respond, but then he calls after Jensen. “Were you right?”

“Pretty sure,” Jensen says over his shoulder, and strolls behind his house.

Jared stands rooted to the spot for a long while afterward, thumb playing along his lower lip. His feet feel funny, like they aren’t quite hitting the ground the same way they always have as he trips up the steps, flinching at the loud hollow noise.

The coast is clear, the house still quiet when Jared slips into his bedroom, tugs his shirt over his head and folds it with care, shoves all the other shirts in his drawer to the side and gives it a place of honor. It’s the shirt that he’d been wearing when Jensen kissed him and Jared indulges in some strange sorta sentimentality. His hair is tangled, wind swept and he works his fingers through the knots, wishing for some kind of rift in the time space continuum that would allow him to hit the replay button. Put the last five minutes on an endless loop.

The morning is growing brighter. He shuffles to the window to close the curtains and instead freezes, hand wrapped in the sheer fabric.

Jensen is standing on the beach, a faraway figure against the nascent rising sun, but still instantly recognizable. He stands completely still, a surfboard planted in the sand beside him, one arm across it and his hand up high, like he’s hugging the shoulders of an old friend, and Jared guesses that he is doing exactly that.

The sun rises further over the ocean, the water reflecting it in countless shifting spots of light, and when Jared closes his eyes, he sees afterimages, stars against the black of his eyelids.

Jensen tilts his head backward, straightens his back like he’s working out the kinks in his spine, broad shoulders rolling slightly. He grabs the board and runs into the surf. With a graceful, practiced move he slips atop it and duck dives past the first set of breakers. Jared watches him as the sun climbed higher on the horizon, waiting for him to catch a wave only he doesn’t. Jensen sits on the board and floats, doesn’t fight the current, rather lets it slowly carry him southward.

Yesterday, when Jared had first arrived here, two weeks had seemed like a very long time. It doesn’t anymore. It seems like hardly any time at all.

 

 

 

“That should do it.” Jensen unplugs the battery and drops it into Steve’s golf cart. It’s hot out today, deep summer in the Deep South. Still breezy enough though, and the air moves through the palmettos with a dry rustle that sounds like old bones. “Could I catch a lift with you? Just up to the store?”

“You don’t even have to ask,” Steve says.

“Two minutes.” Jensen dashes into the house and finds a decent shirt, one with buttons, and steps into his only pair of flip-flops. On the way out the door he does a double take and snatches Jared’s hat from the counter. He holds it up to his nose, tries to convince himself that the warm feeling he gets in his chest at the smell of Jared’s hair is less creepy than it sounds, then puts it on.

“Shoes,” Steve says as Jensen joins him again. “And a real shirt.”

“Yeah, I gotta take the bus, heading over to the mainland for a few hours.”

“Let me get this straight. You’re a-okay with going barefoot in the bar, but the bus is another story?”

“I don’t know where the bus has been,” Jensen points out. He unfastens the top two buttons of his shirt and screws around with the collar, starting to feel strangely claustrophobic under the thin layer of starched cotton.

“If you need to know where the bus has been, all you need to do is buy a map. And that still doesn’t explain the shirt.”

“Smartass.”

Steve smiles, lopsided. “It’s my only reliable character trait. What do you have going on over there? Something for the party tonight?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Good thing I like you,” Steve says, shaking his head. He flips the switch on the golf cart. As the electric motor turns over with a whir, Jensen slides into the passenger seat, smacks Steve away when he tries to kiss him on the cheek.

“Good thing I know how to fix everything that you break,” Jensen shoots back.

“That too.”

The golf cart isn’t exactly street legal, and Steve takes a roundabout way to the main road, following a series of twisted paths no wider than alleyways. There’s more shade a couple of blocks from the ocean front, the sunlight filtered into a dappled green color. Branches from scrub trees and cycads rake against the side of the vehicle, and a small white flower lands in Jensen’s lap. He reaches over, tucks it behind Steve’s ear. Folks from the other side of the island are heading toward the washout, jeeps and pick-ups with surf boards piled in the back, snatches of music as they drive past.

“You should try and get an hour or two in,” Jensen says. “The marine forecast sounds ace. Even you might be able to catch a few.”

“Yeah?” Steve’s kicked back in his seat, one foot notched beside the wheel, steering with his wrist. He glances over, and Jensen can see his own reflection mirrored in Steve’s sunglasses. “How about you? Seems to me you could catch some yourself. Or at least one in particular.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Did Jared ever catch up with you the other night?”

“Yeah, he did.” Jensen chews on his thumbnail, tries to stop the dopey smile that threatens to take over his face. “We hung out. It was…it was nice.” An understatement, because nice doesn’t even scratch the surface, doesn’t even start to leave a mark. The guy’s something else, smart and interesting, takes Jensen’s peculiarity in stride and hands it right back to him. There’s a calmness to him that makes it easier for Jensen to pay attention, to concentrate on one thing at a time. It doesn’t hurt that Jensen could probably stare at him for days on end and never get bored.

“Nice?” Steve parrots. “He seems like a lot more than that.”

“He’s also temporary.” Jensen will readily admit to a history of shoddy judgment, a tendency for split-second decisions that have mostly been forgivable, or at least didn’t result in any sort of collateral damage. Some of them haven’t been forgivable though, not ever, and those are the reasons Jensen hardly sleeps for more than a couple of hours at a time, has spent the last several years of his life living off of catnaps and caffeine.

Steve’s gaze ticks down to Jensen’s hands. They’re shaking, but Steve doesn’t mention it, not when Jensen ineffectually balls them into fists nor when he tucks them under his thighs. He just keeps on talking, doesn’t miss a beat.

“You’ve never been all that great with permanent stuff anyway. Besides, little bit of fun never hurt anyone.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Jensen counters.

“And it’s not entirely false. Happiness is in short supply, and you should get it while the getting’s good. You deserve it.”

Jensen grunts, and it’s enough to make Steve shut his mouth. They pull onto the side of the road in front of the store, beside a Honda with surfboard racks fixed to the roof. Jensen wrinkles his nose and runs a hand along the rails of the stranger’s board. The thing’s in bad shape, could use a good stripping and some decent wax.

“People should take care of what’s theirs,” Jensen says.

Steve nods, shoves at Jensen’s shoulder and says, “I’m trying. I’m _always_ trying.”

 

 

 

There isn’t a grocery store on the island, so to speak. Only a hole in the wall nestled between a diner and the surf shop a block back from the main road. It’s sort of a catch-all, part convenience store and part liquor store, the sorta place where a person can buy a jug of paint and a box of nails if need be, a gallon of milk and a fifth of vodka.

Jared juggles a couple of paper bags, pushing the door open with a hip and spots Steve getting out of a golf cart parked in front of the store. Jensen’s walking down the block, shoes on his feet for the first time since Jared met him, hair hidden beneath a dark knit hat.

“My hat,” Jared says as Steve holds the door wider for him. When Steve just raises an eyebrow at him, Jared elaborates. “That’s my hat. Jensen stole it from me a couple of days ago.”

“Huh, I thought he’d taken it from Chris. So what is it? Like the guy’s version of leaving your underwear in some dude’s bed, only to have an excuse to get it back?”

“What?” Jared’s voice registers an octave higher than nature intended, so high it makes his throat hurt. He clears it, tries again. “No.”

“Methinks the lady doth protest too much.” Steve grins and reaches up to knuckle at Jared’s hair.

“It’s no big deal,” Jared says, hoping the comment comes off as nonchalant as he’s intending. He’s thinking that he’s missed his mark by about a thousand miles.

Steve doesn’t say anything, only squints at him for a beat and takes the bags from his arms. He stuffs them into the back of the golf cart.

“You play golf?” Jared asks.

“Naw, man. I surf,” Steve says, as if that might be the answer to every question Jared could ever ask. “Glad you’re here, actually,” he continues, “I’ll trade you a lift home if you help me carry.”

Jared follows him back into the store, grinning as Steve loads him up with just about one of most things and two of everything else.

“Are you restocking the bar or something?” Jared asks as he stacks three twelve packs of beer in the back and climbs into the passenger seat of the cart.

The electric motor hums as Steve pulls out into the road. “There’s a small shindig on the beach at Chris and Jensen’s place tonight,” he explains. “Didn’t Jensen tell you?”

Jared feels this crazy pang of disappointment and shakes his head, zeros in on the frayed cuff of his shorts and twists a loose strand between his thumb and first finger. It’s been a couple of days since he’s seen Jensen, since that strange early morning. Jeff’s kept him busy with the renovations, and the last two days has been all about work and food and sleep. And maybe spending an embarrassing amount of time leaning over the railing on the back porch, listening for signs of life next door and feeling like a fucking freak because of it. Besides, Jensen doesn’t have a phone and showing up on his doorstep seems a little clingy.

Steve gives him a sidelong glance. “Well, obviously you’re coming.”

“Why obviously? I wasn’t invited.”

“I’m inviting you, unless you need some sorta engraved affair. Good stationary, and maybe a courier?”

“Don’t put yourself out on my account,” Jared teases.

“Anyway, it’s my beer, my call. That’s why obviously.” Steve heaves a loud sigh, heavy on the dramatics. “I have to do everything around here. Buy the beer, chop the wood, try and get the two of you to get your heads out of your asses.”

Jared’s teeth click together when he realizes that he’s staring at Steve with his jaw wide open. He tries to wipe the grin from his face and gives up, figures there’s no point. He wants to do something ridiculous, prepubescent, like pass Steve a note that says _Does Jensen like me? Check the box for yes or no._

 

 

 

“To be young again,” Jeff tells him as Jared emerges from his bedroom.

“C’mon, you’re not old,” Jared says. He rakes his hands through his damp hair, screws around with the collar of his t-shirt and scrunches his toes as he stomps his boots straight on his feet but doesn’t bother with the laces.

Jeff yanks a drop cloth off of one of the overstuffed chairs in the living room and lowers himself into it with a slight wince. “Tell that to my back.” He stretches his legs out, flings one arm over his face. “Hey, not to contribute to your delinquency, but there’s a bottle of bourbon on top of the fridge. It’s all yours.”

“I think they have plenty,” Jared tells him. “I carried most of the liquor store to the beach a few hours ago.”

“You’re in the south, boy-o. There’s a certain way of doing things down here. We don’t show up to a person’s house empty handed in this neck of the woods. Take it.”

“Don’t wait up.” Jared flashes a smile at his uncle as he grabs the bottle.

“Trust me, I won’t.” Jeff peeks out from under his arm.

The smell of a wood fire hits Jared as soon as he’s outside. He follows his nose between the two houses and out onto the beach.

A small group of people is gathered around the bonfire, forms silhouetted in shadow against the tall fire and Jared hesitates, nervous.

He’s never been very good at making friends, has always felt like he needs to hold back a little, not let anyone really get to know him. Because sure, girls are great and he has a objective sort of appreciation for the swing of a woman’s hips and the silky slip of a her hair through his fingers, and the one time he had a sorta-but-not-really-we’re-just-friends-girlfriend, he liked the feel of her as she straddled his thigh at the lunch table way back in high school, liked the taste of her cherry flavored lip gloss, but none of this holds a candle to the rush he got when Jensen kissed him that first time, the knotted up swoop of his stomach that happens every time he looks at Jensen or Jensen looks at him in that particular way, head bent in real close and smiling.

He’s never told anyone any of this, not his folks or his uncle or the handful of roommates he’s had in college, because he’s learned that there are some secrets that can’t be shared, not even with his best friend and maybe _particularly_ not with his best friend, who knows his mother and father well enough to call them Ma and Pop, who always had a spot at his supper table and for a lot of years an even bigger spot in his heart. Better to not think about it. Potholes and pitfalls all the way down that line of thought. Goddamn landmines.

Jensen sits Indian-style on the beach, tucked between the legs of the woman Jared recognizes from the other night. His hand rests around her ankle and she keeps nudging him with her knee, rocking him back and forth to the music that pipes out of the house’s open windows.

Jared has never experienced that sort of physical familiarity with anyone before, wonders what it would feel like to have free reign over someone else’s body like that. He doesn’t get it, how Jensen is able to focus all of his attention on him, make him feel like he is the only person who matters, and then turn around and do the same thing with someone else. He’s still wearing Jared’s hat, though, and that has to mean something.

The usual suspects are gathered, and Jared picks out the familiar form of Steve, who has stationed himself in front of a folding table and is performing complex chemistry with shakers, soda water and muddled mint. He sees the dark haired guy with the pale blue eyes and assumes it has to be Chris, so the woman standing close beside him with the light hair and sharp smile has to be Beth. There are a couple of others he doesn’t recognize, a guy with short dark hair who looks out of place, looks like he’s stepped out onto the beach directly from some corporate boardroom, his tie loose around his neck and his collar unbuttoned, the cuffs of his trousers rolled up to his knees.

Jared steps into the ring of light around the fire and Jensen leaps up right away, using the woman’s knees for leverage.

“Hello, the stranger,” he says around a broad grin, thunks Jared on the back and leads him toward the fire with an arm hooked around his neck.

Introductions are made, and Jared learns that the guy in the business suit is Misha, Jensen’s guru for all things surfing related, taught Jensen everything he knows about riding and how to read waves.

“Did he just come from work?” Jared says, picking up the guy’s suit jacket and shaking the sand from it before placing it over the back of an empty chair.

“Nope,” Jensen replies. “He builds boards nowadays, ever since he retired from the competitive loop. Works outta that shack that you pass on the main road. The one near the marshes with all those spray painted waves.”

“Then why the—“ Jared says, with a general gesture in his direction.

“Beats me. Last time he came to one of these, he showed up in one of those wrap around dresses. All those flowers and that gut-wrenching shade of orange didn’t do him any favors.”

Jensen tells him that the dark haired woman is in fact Sophia, who first came to the island a few years ago to study turtles when she is doing fieldwork for her graduate degree. She’d left to finish it, but the place had already sunk its hooks in nice and deep. She came back as soon as she was finished and hasn’t left since.

Jared whispers to Jensen, “How long have Chris and Beth been together?”

“They aren’t.”

“Sure looks that way, though.”

“Chris has a reputation,” Jensen explains, “and Beth has a different kinda reputation. You look at them and know it’s there, sure, but it’s one of those things we aren’t gonna talk about.”

“What aren’t we supposed to talk about?” Steve says from a short distance behind them.

Jensen jumps in for a smooth save. “What sorta unspeakable things you’re going to do to this bottle of bourbon, that’s what we’re not supposed to talk about.” He takes it from Jared’s hand and passes it over to Steve, who tips it toward the light to read the label.

“Four Roses,” he says, and holds the cut glass bottle up to the light. “Would you look at that? Almost too pretty to drink.” He cracks it open, holds it under his nose then takes a sip, right from the bottle. “Single barrel. Rye. Goddamn, it’s like sex in a bottle. Who’d you have to screw to get it?”

Jared opens his mouth to answer, but Steve talks right over him.

“Never mind. I don’t wanna know. Jensen sure as hell doesn’t want to know.”

“Don’t bother me much,” Jensen cuts in with a tug at Jared’s hip. “A bottle of rye like that…well, man’s gotta do whatever it takes.”

Sophia wanders over to them and formally introduces herself with a warm hug, rises up to her tiptoes to plant a kiss on Jared’s cheek, and Jared gets a nose full of vanilla and flowery jasmine.

“Why don’t you go inside,” she tells Jensen. “Grab us those nice glasses that Chris has in the cupboard. It would be a sin to drink that stuff out of a plastic cup.”

Jensen bows with a flourish and scoots off, and Sophia turns her attention fully on Jared. A minute of talking to her and he can tell she’s brilliant in a very down to earth way.

“So turtles,” Jared leads.

“Yep. I’m studying migratory patterns of marine life, but I like the Loggerhead turtles the best, mostly because they introduced me to this place. Besides, they seemed like a good subject. They move slow. It’s really easy to keep up.”

“Is that when you met Jensen?” Jared asks. He tries to keep it light, disguise the gentle prod for information, but she sees right through it.

“Yeah, it was in the middle of my survey. I’d gone around knocking on doors and asking everyone to keep the lights in their ocean-facing rooms turned off. It screws with the hatchlings’ sense of direction. They think that someone’s motion detector spotlight is the moon and they crawl toward the road instead of the ocean.”

Chris passes by with a nod to Jared and clinks their beer bottles together, and Sophia pats his cheek and holds his hand for a second, fingers trailing as he moves along. Jared is starting to figure out that it’s simply how she operates. She learns and trusts by touch. Jensen seems to be the same way. They’re perfectly matched in that regard. Jared kinda hates that, loves it twice as much.

She goes on, “Jensen answered the door, said a buddy of his had dropped off a few dozen crabs and the suckers had gotten out of the basket.” She laughs, a light tittering sound. “Next thing I know I was chasing the things all over the house. Under the table. Behind the refrigerator. One of them got me.” She holds her hand up and shows Jared a narrow little scar in the web of flesh between her thumb and her first finger, and pinches it with her other hand to demonstrate. “This happened before Jensen could give me a set of oven mitts.”

“Ouch,” Jared says with a wince.

“Eh, it wasn’t so bad. Makes for a good story and a battle scar. Little bastard sure did taste good afterward.”

There is a loud burst of laughter and Jared looks over to see Jensen trip down the steps with his arms full of glasses, do a spot on impersonation W.C. Fields and manages to not drop a single one.

“Has he stopped surprising you yet?” Jared asks.

“No,” she says, pure affection pouring from her soft smile. “Don’t think he ever will.” She turns her gaze to Jared, direct in a way that makes his skin too tight and makes the collar of his shirt feel too small. “I know what you’re thinking, and it isn’t like that. I love him entirely, with every ounce of everything that I have, and I know he’d say the same way about me, but.”

“Yeah?” Jared urges her on, and goddamn but it seems like he’s about to lay down the whole farm on a bet that he’s sure to lose.

“He’s not wearing _my_ hat,” she points out.

“But you’re wearing his.”

She touches the brim, spins it around so that it faces backward. “You got it.”

“Never knew that there would be this much politics surrounding the thievery and usage of other people’s hats,” Jared teases. There’s a metaphor in there, and a pretty heavy handed one at that.

“Oh, sweetheart, you have no idea. Don’t even get me started on varsity letter jackets.”

The night wears on, the moon trudges across the sky. Every once in a while someone adds more wood to the fire and sparks fly up, carried on the constant ocean breeze. There’s an ease in how Jensen’s friends interact, the way they revolve around each other, the way they take him in immediately and without question and make him one of their own, like he’s always been there, like he’s never going to leave.

“I’m starting to get it,” Jared tells Chris. They’re sitting in a matched pair of low beach chairs and Jared’s ditched the boots, is buried up to his ankles in cool sand. “It’s like things can grow still here. Everywhere else feels like time’s speeding up, but not here.”

Chris takes his time replying. He makes a see-sawing motion with his hand. “Stuff changes. Slowly. The topography, mostly. There was this storm that blew through here years back. Can’t remember the name…” Chris trails off. His voice carries a familiar inflection. Jared can hear Jensen in it, different and the same all at once, and can tell right away that the two of them grew up together. So much history there, and Jared wishes he knew even half of it.

“Floyd,” Jared supplies, “or maybe Isabel.” He grins, knows exactly where this is going.

“Yeah, that’s right. It tore up the north end of the island. After the storm passed, I hardly knew my way around up there.”

“Jensen told me that you guys surfed it.”

“Fuck yeah, we did. It had been Jensen’s idea.”

“Jensen said it was yours.”

Chris snorts, salutes Jensen with his bottle although the guy isn’t paying attention, is fully wrapped up in talking to Beth and Misha, telling tall tales if his animated, wild gestures are anything to go by. “Fucker,” he mutters. “Don’t believe half of what he says, and always be sure to look the other half up. Of _course_ it had been Jensen’s idea. He’s always been on the right side of crazy.” He cuts off before the sentence has finished clearing his mouth, and the silence stretches out for a few long moments.

“Do you need to get a permit to have fires on the beach?” Jared says, just to fill it up.

“Naw,” Chris slurs, the south in his voice coming out front and center. “Got a cousin who works for the city council whose sister-in-law is married to the fire marshal. And anyway, isn’t not like the neighbors are gonna complain, right?”

“You’re related to everyone around here.”

“It’s a small island. Everyone’s family, and there are no such things as secrets.” Chris stands, takes Jared’s hand in a strong grip and pulls him to his feet. “Get you another?”

Jared shakes his head. The beer is a warm slosh in his stomach, his fingers, toes, and the crown of his head pleasantly tingling and he’s teetering on the knife-edge of just enough.

“So architecture, huh?” Misha circles around him. He’s not dressed for the beach and the night is warm, small trickles of sweat draw streaks down his temples. “How much do you know about fiberglass construction?”

“Enough to know you shouldn’t build houses out of it. I mean, it’s light and it’s cheap, but unless you’re trying to build some kinda underground bunker, it’s not very practical.”

“I was wondering if any of your training could be applied to constructing the perfect surfboard, although it’s useful to know how to build a really great hobbit hole.”

Jensen passes by them, dodges Jared as he makes a play to steal back his hat, then snugs in close anyway, curls his fingers against the small of Jared’s back, tugging at his t-shirt. He rocks against Jared, a slow back and forth sway, and Jared is obliged to rock along with him. His palms find Jensen’s hipbones and their forearms line up and notch them together and it’s as if he’s been waiting forever to do exactly this. Waiting a lifetime for the chance. Maybe longer.

“Is it bad?” Jensen whispers directly into Jared’s ear and traces the shell of the other one with his thumb. “Is it terrible that I want everyone to leave except you?” He backs off, sucks on his bottom lip and draws it slowly between his teeth.

It would be such bad form to ditch everybody right now. Misha’s looking at them, watching unabashedly, like he has every right to, one corner of his mouth tugged upward in a thoughtful smile. Jared hardly cares, drops his head to Jensen’s shoulder and strengthens his grip on Jensen’s hipbones as Jensen starts to move away.

“Later,” Jensen says. “Promise.” He disappears behind the house again, and Jared’s left shivery, with an odd, hollow sensation in his stomach, half hard and wondering whether or not he’s supposed to be following behind.

“He’s a good guy,” Misha says once Jensen’s out of sight. “I think he’s doing alright for himself, all things considered.”

“All things considered?” Jared repeats, hazy and curious.

“That’s right,” Misha muses. He clears his throat and rubs at the back of his neck. “You’re new, and Jensen can be cagey. Forget I said anything.”

“That’s unlikely,” Jared says.

“Some secrets are Jensen’s to keep, and they aren’t mine to tell.”

The fire is starting to burn down, a deep, shifting red glow of burning embers, and no one has added any extra wood for a while. Jensen steps out of the shadows from around the corner of the house, toting a long metal rake. He attempts some sorta acrobatic move, an ill-conceived and even more terribly executed pole vault across picnic table, and lands in a clumsy heap on Sophia and half of Chris. They take it in stride, get him set back up and on his feet again.

“Looks like someone has been self-medicating,” Misha observes, wry. “I don’t know how that boy manages to surf the way he does. Right now he can hardly handle solid ground.”

“It’s an act,” Jared says. He doesn’t know how he knows it, only knows that it’s true. He thinks about Jensen up at the lighthouse, his toes curling around the iron railing as he’d flung his arms straight out, and the how he hadn’t even swayed, not one inch.

The look Misha gives him is sharp, probing. “I do believe that you might be onto something.”

Jensen starts to rake the embers, spreading them out in an even layer. Everyone’s gone silent, nursing their drinks as they watch him work. There is something almost ritualistic about it, and this whole night Jared hadn’t gotten the vibe that he is an outsider, but he’s kinda getting it now.

“What’s going on?” Jared asks in a whisper. Misha’s at his shoulder, feet set wide apart and rocking slightly to the slow, sluggish sound of the waves as they roll onto the beach.

“We’ve hit high tide,” Misha tells him, bent in close to Jared’s ear. “It’s time to take off our shoes and face our fears.”

“I don’t know what that means.” The night is taking on a very surreal bend, a doglegged turn, and Jared feels a muddy panic start to creep up.

“You will. You trust Jensen, right?”

“Yeah,” Jared says, and he’s surprised to find that it’s the truth entire.

“Good. Good. He’s very good at this. He won’t let you get hurt.”

Chris is first to go, staring down the bed of coals with single-minded determination before taking one step. Sparks swirl around his ankles and Jared catches the distinct smell of burning hair, but he makes it to the other side among the rousing whoops and cat-calls of his friends.

Jared begins to realize that the way each person approaches the challenge is an insight into their personality. Sophia hops in a step behind Beth, arms wrapped around each other’s waists to stay on course and in balance. Misha threatens to do a handstand then thinks better of it, and Steve crosses the fire with a series of strange, see-sawing two-steps.

“You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.”

Jared startles a little when Jensen speaks low into his ear. He presses up against Jared’s back, chest plastered tight to Jared’s shoulders and draws his fingers along the inside of his arms. Jared leans into it, feels more than hears the soft noise that Jensen makes, Jensen’s breath on the back of his neck, so warm and close that Jensen’s mouth has to be right there, a fraction of an inch away.

He swallows. His tongue feels swollen and his throat is dry, and the mouthful of beer he sucks down doesn’t do anything to make it go away. “No,” Jared says, and his voice sounds foreign to his own ears. “I’ll do it. I wanna do it.”

“That’s my boy,” Jensen says with a minute push. “Follow my lead and do what I say, and you’ll be fine.”

“It’s the power of positive thinking, huh?” Jared jokes. His stomach is knotted and heart is banging in his chest and it’s a likely possibility that his head is attached to the rest of his body by a thin, tenuous string.

Jensen laughs, and Jared thinks, not for the first time, that he could really get used to the sound of Jensen’s laugh. “All those self-proclaimed motivational gurus are full of crap. It’s physics,” he explains, and urges Jared toward the coals. “It’s hot, sure, but there’s a layer of ash on top, and ash is a poor conductor.”

“So is wood,” Jared says, and kicks his shoes off. Folks are lined up along the edge of the bed of coals, their faces lit up red, watching them closely but silently.

It seems big, significant somehow. Not just a parlor trick. The air wavers above the shifting glowing coals, and heat pushes at Jared’s face. Sweat trickles down his back, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is the way that Jensen nudges the back of his hand against his, fingers searching. What matters is how Jensen tangles his fingers into Jared’s when Jared reaches out and rubs their thumbs together.

“Yeah, you get it,” Jensen says. “Don’t rush. If you rush, that’ll make your feet dig in and you’ll sink past the layer of ash. Walk flat-footed, because if you tip-toe or walk on your heels, it’ll make you push in. Think about how cool the sand will feel on the other side. Think about this,” he says, and he squeezes Jared’s hand. “And one more thing.”

“Yeah?” Jared asks.

“Tread lightly.”

“That’s a good philosophy.”

“Exactly. That’s it. That’s the point. You ready?”

Jared nods, and together they take the first step.

A few years ago, when Jared had been more of a kid than he is now, he and a couple of friends from his high school chess club had decided to travel across the great state of Texas to see a chess tournament that had been held in Dallas. They never made it, and rather than watch Gefland soundly kick Andand’s ass, they managed to break down on the chunk of highway between Tyler and Taylor. It had been hot in the way that only Texas in August can get hot, a three-week stretch of time when the temperature didn’t dip below a hundred degrees, even in the middle of the night. Not a lick of shade in sight beside that godforsaken highway, and Jared had gotten the worst sunburn in his life as he paced along the shoulder waiting for a tow truck. So hot that the tar they used to patch up the cracks in the pavement had melted to the soles of his shoes. That hadn’t even come close to this.

Sparks shoot up between their feet, little embers that bite at Jared’s ankles and creep between his toes. Jensen matches his steps has no reaction that Jared can find, not a waver in the steady grip of his hand or the calm measure of his footsteps. He doesn’t wince or grimace, keeps his eyes fixed on Jared the whole time, a small, encouraging curl to his mouth.

The sand hits his feet like some form of salvation, soothing and cool on his soles and he digs into it, squirms until his toes are buried. There are more war-whoops and pats on the back from everyone, and Chris pulls Jared down with a hand wrapped around the base of his skull, brings their foreheads together.

Thick smell of whiskey on his breath and he says, inexplicably, “I might have been wrong about you. You passed. You made it to the other side. Impressive.”

Before Jared can wrap his head around that, Misha starts peeling his clothes off, wetsuit shorts underneath his dress pants. “Friends and neighbors,” he says, “we made it through the fire. Now lets go walk on water.”

Everyone starts to strip and poke around in the rack of surfboards, but Jared stays back, and Jensen stays with him.

“Don’t you want to go?” Jared asks.

“There’s more than one kinda miracle. I can go surfing anytime. I’d rather be with you.”

They walk down near the water line where the sand is damp and compacted, away from the spot where everyone is diving past the breakers. The moon is high in the sky, a cold blue light that makes Jensen look pale, like a ghost.

They’re close together, elbows bumping. Jared’s wondering whether he should reach out and take his hand again, or if that sort of thing is only reserved for life-threatening scenarios when Jensen says, “Am I coming on too strong? I have a tendency to come on too strong.”

“So about that theory,” Jared starts, a reckless thing happening in his chest because he wants to kiss Jensen again, has wanted to do basically nothing but kiss Jensen for the past couple of days and the last ten minutes has only made it worse. Or better. Anyone’s guess.

“Yeah, about that.” Jensen pulls a face. “I guess I should have called it a hypothesis, because theories aren’t something that you usually test, right? They’ve already been tested and proved or disproved, or at least that’s what I remember from geometry.”

“I didn’t bring it up to discuss semantics.”

“Oh. _Oh._ Then what did you—“

Jared cuts him off. “Be quiet,” he urges, and grabs Jensen’s hips, pulls him near. Jensen just goes with it, allows himself to be guided. His mouth is already open when Jared gets there and he smiles around the kiss, reaches up to cradle Jared’s face and notch his thumbs into the hollows beneath Jared’s eyes. It’s soft, tentative and all the better because of it, the way that Jensen flicks his tongue and slides it into Jared’s mouth. Jared tastes mint and whiskey, feels the warmth of Jensen in all the places that they touch, can’t get enough of the press of Jensen’s chest against his, how his whole body melts into the kiss, and all those soft, happy noises that he breathes into Jared’s mouth.

Jensen breaks away, squints at Jared through his lashes, head tilted back and he pushes up onto his tiptoes, buries his hands in Jared’s hair and kisses him proper. Deeper than before and with a whole lot more intent, sucks on Jared’s tongue and nudges at his jaw until he’s found the angle he wants.

About the time that Jared starts to think that something is actually going to happen, that he’ll have something to show for this trip outside of a new interior in his uncle’s house and a ceiling that isn’t about to collapse, Jensen makes a frustrated, wrenched out noise and stumbles a step backward. He presses another kiss to the corner of Jared’s mouth, quick like punctuation, a full stop at the end of a sentence.

“Fuck, I like that.” He swipes his thumb along the dip of Jared’s bottom lip. “Why aren’t we doing that all the time?”

Jared’s reeling a little, dizzy and it might not be the best time to trust his senses, because he thinks that Jensen has grown a couple of inches in the last few minutes, at least until he looks down, realizes that he’s been rooted to the same spot long enough to sink past his ankles in the sand, and that Jensen’s had the presence of mind to stay on top.

The ragged edges of his shorts are getting wet every time there is a slightly larger wave in the set and in another few minutes, Jared will be shorter than him. Interesting, getting to see the world from this angle, from Jensen’s point of view.

“You’re very good at that,” Jensen’s saying and Jared is about to make another joke about testing theories or hypotheses, about how some things are still unproven, and maybe something about Pythagoras in the bathtub, but Jensen rips his shirt over his head then yanks Jared’s off as well.

“As much as I’d like to get to know you a little--scratch that, a _lot_ \--better, screwing around on the beach really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Sand everywhere.” He lets his eyes wander over Jared’s chest, then rips the hat off of his head, balls it up in their shirts and throws everything clear of the water. “Besides, we haven’t even had our first date yet.”

Water swirls around their ankles with foamy, insistent tugs, and there’s an odd pattern to the waves foaming about twenty feet out to shore.

“Sand bar,” Jensen says when he notices Jared’s stare. “The water barely comes up to your knees out there. They’re all over the place here. Maybe we could swim out to it.”

“It’s a date,” Jared says, voice pitched low, weighty implication through and through.

“I like the way you think,” Jensen tells him, then takes a few loping strides and dives into the water, surfaces several yards away and begins a lazy backstroke, waiting to make sure that Jared’s following.

It takes Jared a full minute longer than Jensen to make it out to the sand bar as he fights to swim against the current. Jensen hauls him in for the last couple of feet, arms like a longshoreman and Jared scrambles to his upright, heaving huge gasps.

“I’ve been here for four days, and this is the first time I’ve gone for a swim.” He regrets his lack of swimsuit; his shorts hang heavy on his hips and cling to him uncomfortably.

“That’s fucking criminal. What have you been doing all this time?”

“Working.”

“The ocean trumps work. And here I thought you were smart.”

They can hear the shouts coming from Jensen’s friends some distance away, over the rhythmic wash of the water. “They’re good people,” Jared observes.

“My tribe of lost boys,” Jensen says, soft and musing.

“And you’re their captain,” Jared teases.

“I wish. I’ve grown up, or at least I’m halfway there.”

Jensen stands close to Jared, soaking in the quiet, swaying with the current that laps against their lower legs. He’s got slippery wet skin and spikes in his hair and Jared really wishes that it could be brighter out, that the sun could be shining because he wants to be able to watch his hands slide across Jensen’s shoulders, see it when Jensen throws his arms around his neck.

“What do you think about temporary?” Jensen asks.

“Temporary is a hell of a lot better than not at all.”

“That’s the spirit,” Jensen says, quiet and thoughtful, underlined with uncertainty. “Just. Promise you won’t let me fuck this up,” Jensen goes on, and it doesn’t make any sense, but Jared is about to promise him anything and everything anyway. Promise him things that he doesn’t even have, things that aren’t his to give.

 

_Never say goodbye, because saying goodbye means going away, and going away means forgetting._

 

                                                                                           

 

 

Everyone is still out surfing when they stroll back toward the house, dim figures far from shore, bobbing up and down with the waves and disappearing behind the swells for long periods of time. They’re spread out but still close enough to keep an eye on each other, Jensen’s glad to see. Night surfing can be dangerous, especially with Steve in the mix. Safety in numbers.

Their shirts are damp and sandy, so Jensen tucks both of them into the back waistband of his shorts, lets them hang down, and crams the hat on his head.

“I’m giving up on that hat. You can just have it,” Jared tells him, and straightens it along Jensen’s forehead.

Jensen pauses, pats down his damp pockets even though he knows they’re empty. He works the knots on one of his bracelets loose with his teeth, swallowing down the taste of saltwater. It’s his favorite one, brown wooden beads strung on a thin leather cord. He holds it out to Jared.

“No,” Jared says, hands held up, fingers pruney from their swim. “That’s not how it’s supposed to work. I’m trying to give you a gift.”

“And now I’m trying to give you one. It works that way, too.”

Jared relents, holds his left arm out and lets Jensen knot it around his wrist. “Too tight?”

“Just right.” Jared runs his fingers over the beads. “You’ll make a fine southern gentleman one day.”

“You already are,” Jensen says, a warmth beating out the chill on his skin when Jared ducks his head and turns away.

They get back to the house to find that the fire has almost burned completely down, reduced to an amorphous, shifting glow in the sand.

“Do you see that?” Jared says.

Jensen shakes his head. There have been nights when he’s seen things in the fire, faces and landscapes better left forgotten, but this hasn’t been one of those nights. Tonight his sight has been filled up with Jared, and the careful way he’d fallen in with his friends, how he’s been trying so hard.

“Here.” Jared kicks at the sand, shaping the burning coals until Jensen can finally see what he sees. A wide, flat tail, an open mouth, a fin.

“A big fish,” Jensen says, and leads Jared up the steps into his house.

His place isn’t spacious, not by any stretch, but he’d tried to tame the clutter earlier in the day, what with company coming and all, shove books back onto the shelves and make neat stacks of sheet music and movies and his damn near obsessive collection of old vinyl. It’s plenty enough room for him, usually, but having Jared here fills it up. The guy is substantial, towers over Jensen and it’s not only because he tops out a few inches taller than him, even though that doesn’t happen all that often. It’s more than the space he inhabits, his height or the breadth of his shoulders. It’s the size of his presence, and that’s something that’s twice as big as the body that contains it.

Jensen goes to his bedroom, scrounges up something dry for Jared to wear and a couple of relatively clean towels. Once he makes it back to the main room, he finds Jared inspecting his bookshelves, slipping his fingers along the spines.

“Pynchon and Robbins side-by-side with J.M. Barrie,” Jared notes, knocking his knuckle against Jensen’s battered and much loved copy of _Peter Pan_. “Now I know that you come by all those Neverland references honest.”

As he roughs a towel over his chest, Jensen says, “I’m an escapist. Too much reality has never done anyone any good.”

Jared hums. “Some of my oldest friends are books. You have good taste.” He pulls a double-take, crosses the room and touches the inside of Jensen’s upper arm, tracing the ink Jensen has etched into his skin, the single line of Arabic. “What’s this?”

“Oh,” Jensen says, and clamps his arm down tight to hide it. “A bad decision. Maybe a good decision, but that depends on the day.” He clears his throat, cuts off any further conversation by pressing Jared into a chair and positioning himself between his legs. He scuffs the towel through Jared’s hair, moves it down Jared’s shoulders and his back. Once finished, he snaps the it straight and tips Jared’s face upward, two fingers below his chin. “It looks like I’ve made a mess outta you,” he says, then threads his fingers through Jared’s hair to work out the knots. Jared closed his eyes, purrs like one of the larger felines while Jensen scratches along his scalp, tucks stray strands behind his ears.

“It’s okay. I don’t mind,” Jared tells him. “You can do whatever you want.” To prove it, he hooks his fingers into the waistband of Jensen’s shorts and leans his forehead against his stomach. Jensen’s muscles jump in response, and they jump again as Jared presses his mouth low on his belly. Jensen doesn’t let up, continues to move his hands through Jared’s hair, restless, down along his neck and across his bare shoulders. Jared focuses his attention wholly on Jensen’s skin. He places gentle, suckling kisses straight down the center of his stomach, pausing for a second to draw a circle around Jensen’s navel with his tongue.

Jensen’s hands are shaking and it’s not for any of the usual reasons. He concentrates, tries to make them stop. He needs to find a way make them stop because Jared needs to know he’s sure of this, that he’s rock solid and steady. But Jared reads him wrong, or maybe he reads him right, because he takes Jensen by the wrist and holds on tight while he nuzzles at the front of Jensen’s shorts, at the tented, obvious shape of his hardening cock.

“In the interest of full disclosure,” Jared says, breath falling warm on Jensen’s skin, “I’ve only done this a few times, and the first time was over before it really even started.”

“Fuck, look at you,” Jensen says, “I woulda thought they’d be lining up.”

Jared exhales a relieved breath. “Small town. Small _southern_ town. Not a lotta room for self expression.”

“You’re safe here. It’s just us.”

It does the trick. The tension drains from Jared’s shoulders and he unhooks Jensen’s shorts, allows them to fall to the floor with a damp slap, then zeroes in on Jensen’s cock. It’s fully hard now, wet at the tip. He licks up along the underside, tongue flat and wide. He kisses the crown, circles his fist around the base of Jensen’s cock and works him with a few experimental tugs, and Jensen has to lock his knees in place, arch his back to keep his balance.

If Jared hadn’t told him that he’s a rookie, Jensen never would have known. The way he takes Jensen’s cock into his mouth, the perfect ring of his lips and the feel of his tongue is nothing short of sin. Jensen hisses between his teeth, curls his toes against the floor and has to bury his hands in Jared’s hair again to ground himself. It’s taking all of his concentration to not buck forward, shove himself further down Jared’s throat, give in to the need to take whatever Jared offers and then go right ahead and take some more.

It’s good, better than good, the ridged, slippery curve at the roof of Jared’s mouth, that small frown of concentration that forms between his eyes and the hot, deep flush that spreads across his cheeks and wanders down his neck. Jared kneads at the back of Jensen’s thighs, tries to tug him in closer and keep him there, and Jensen staggers forward, jams himself deeper down Jared’s throat than before, unintentional but so goddamn hot. White spots shoot in across Jensen’s vision. He closes his eyes, but they’re still there. Brighter than before. Stars. Whole motherfucking constellations.

Jared gags around him and pulls off, keeps rubbing him off and it’s impossibly better than before, slicker, Jared’s grip tighter.

“Open up,” Jared says between deep, panting breaths. “Let me see.”

Jensen obeys, doesn’t really have a choice, opens his eyes and fixes on Jared’s face. He’s looking up at him, focused and questioning, like he’s trying to make sure he’s doing it right, trying so hard to make it good, and Jensen wants to let him know, tell him he’s got nothing to worry about, tell him that it’s shooting stars and moonbeams and the goddamn Fourth of July all rolled into one, but all he can do is nod and thrust into Jared’s hand. Faster and faster until his orgasm washes over him, spunk shooting over Jared’s fist, small spatters landing on Jared’s mouth.

Jensen intends on returning the favor, pulls Jared to his feet and it looks like Jared’s legs are as watery as Jensen’s feel. They trip and stumble, hands everywhere, and Jensen can’t stop kissing him, gets off on the traces of his own cock in Jared’s mouth, the dark salty taste, can’t stop nipping at Jared’s slick, swollen lips. He walks Jared backward to his bed, lowers him onto it and follows him down, slots in beside him.

An even darker patch has spread on the crotch of Jared’s already wet shorts and Jensen can feel the heat of his skin through the fabric when he cups Jared’s dick. He worms his hand inside, all damp, sticky heat. Jared groans, sucks on one particular spot on Jensen’s neck as Jensen rubs at him, squeezing gently. It’s awkward, all difficult angles and Jensen can’t get the leverage he really wants, not with Jared hugging him close the way he is. Jensen improvises, works his hand with small, stuttering movements while Jared hangs on hooks his leg over Jensen’s hip and his arm around his shoulders and rides it out, comes sloppy and hot up Jensen’s wrist, most of the way up to his elbow.

“God. Oh god,” Jared moans, and gives Jensen a sheepish, embarrassed smile before he buries his face against Jensen’s shoulder once more.

“I didn’t invite you just because I thought that this might happen,” Jensen starts, and Jared makes a small, questioning noise. He tries again. “I mean, this wasn’t my intent.”

“You actually didn’t invite me at all,” Jared murmurs against his skin. “I kinda crashed.”

“Then that was the best invitation that I never actually gave out. I’m really glad you did.”

“Yeah, me too.”

 

 

Sleep isn’t an easy thing. There are the usual nightmares that leave Jensen shaking and disoriented, waking up drenched in cold sweat and not knowing where he is. He can count on one hand the number of nights he’s gotten a solid eight or more over the last several years, and last night is one of them. It’s gotta be Jared. There’s a stillness that comes whenever he’s around him. The world slows down, becomes more understandable and lenient.

The sun is already high in the sky when Jensen opens his eyes. Jared is a wall all along his back, hotter than a space heater, snoring softly. His hair tickles the back of Jensen’s neck and his hand rests huge and warm in the center of Jensen’s stomach. Their legs are tangled together, feet notched side-by-side.

He can hear Chris banging around in his kitchen, smell coffee and burned toast, so he slips gently from bed, puts on a pair of boxers and joins him, picks his shorts up from where they dropped the night before and throws them onto the chair.

“You smell like sex,” Chris greets him, talking low. “You look like it too.”

“Top of the morning to you, too.” Jensen’s still got Jared’s come on his forearm, dried and flaky, too lazy and sated last night to do anything about it. He scrubs his hands at the sink with some stuff that Sophia brought over a while back, and now he smells like a fucking rose garden, which should make Chris happy. “Do I have anything on my face?”

Chris rolls his eyes. “Son of a bitch.” He crunches through a piece of toast, his complexion tinged a vaguely green, hungover color. “So. Jared.”

“He’s still asleep,” Jensen says, finger crossed over his lips.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Chris plants his fists on his hips, and that’s never good news.

“I’m sure it’s not a bad one,” Jensen insists, and hopes against hope that it’ll put an end to it. It doesn’t. Of course it doesn’t.

“He’s just a kid, Jensen, and—“

Jensen interrupts, still quiet, but with some force behind it. “He’s not. He’s just a few years younger than us. I was younger than him when I…” He bites the inside of his cheek.

“You grew up different.”

“Well, that’s more credit than you usually give me. You like to remind me that I’ve hardly grown up at all.” He waves a hand dismissively. “We know what we’re doing. It’s okay. We’re okay.”

The heat has gone out of Chris’s voice, and he takes Jensen’s face between his hands, smashes his cheeks together. “Just make sure of it. You tend to fixate.”

His eyes lock onto a spot behind Jensen’s shoulder, and Jensen hears a quiet footstep. He spins to find Jared standing there, hair flat against his head on one side and corkscrewed on the other. He’s commandeered a pair of Jensen’s boxers and they’re too small for him, but damn if they don’t offer a spectacular view of his ass, ride high up on his thighs and frame his crotch in a very interesting way. Jared stretches, ribs on display and the hair under his arms shockingly dark against his pale skin. The kid needs to go outside more often, get some more sun.

The expression on Chris’s face is unreadable, a flat stare and his mouth is set in a straight line. “Coffee?”

“Absolutely,” Jared replies and approaches the counter, stiff-legged and watery-eyed, pats Jensen in the center of his chest and trails his hand across Jensen’s skin with fingers still warm from bed.

“Put some of that honey on the toast. My nephew’s working as a beekeeper for the summer. So much better than the stuff you can buy at the store.”

Jensen lets out a relieved breath. Chris wouldn’t feed a guy he doesn’t trust.

“Nice boxers,” Chris says, handing over a slice of toast.

“Hope you don’t mind,” Jared says to Jensen, eyebrows up and grinning all honey-sloppy, his tongue curled around his crooked tooth. “Mine are kinda gross.”

Jensen grins back. “Not even a little.”

 

Although Jeff has owned this place for years, he’s probably only spent less than a few weeks here total. Not surprising that Jensen has never met the man, only the people who come along routinely to maintain it, the regular housekeeper and the guy who comes along once a month to trim the palmettos and knock back the shrubs, stop them from taking over.

A six pack dangles from Jensen’s fingers and he’s balancing a pizza with one arm, from the best—and only—place in town. Jensen knocks on the screen door, a couple of polite raps even though it’s clear the thing isn’t locked. He does have manners after all, and his momma taught him to never show up to a place empty-handed.

Jeff answers the door and waves him inside. Jared must get his height from that side of the family, because Jeff rings in somewhere between Jared and Jensen. His hair is dark, threaded through with silver at his temples and his grin is broad underneath his short beard.

“It’s good to meet the man who’s been keeping my nephew out all hours of the night,” Jeff says, bent over to put the beer in the fridge.

“I kinda think it’s been the other way around,” Jensen teases.

Jared bangs in through the back door on a cloud of drywall dust. It’s clumped in his hair and there’s a streak of it on his cheek. Jensen goes to brush it off, but Jared takes a half-step back with a tiny shake of his head. Jensen drops his hand, gives Jared an even smaller nod, letting him know that he understands, giving him the all clear.

“I thought you were gonna come in through the back,” Jared tells him.

Lifting his shoulder in a half-shrug, Jensen replies, “I thought it was better to come in from the front. Reckon the situation warranted it.”

Jared’s mouth drops open and his throat works silently for a second, and a persistent blush colors his cheeks, visible even under all the dust on his face.

Jeff’s digging through the kitchen drawers looking for a bottle opener and Jared mouths, _fuck you_ behind his back, his eyes all lit up.

Barely able to hold back a snort, Jensen goes one better. _Anytime_.

Ambling through the house as he wolfs down a slice of pizza, Jeff gives him the nickel tour of the place, Jared following close behind. It’s minimalist, neutral walls and neutral furniture underneath the drop cloths, bestsellers on the bookshelves, with only a few quirky odds and ends that make it appealing to a high turnover of renters: a large wooden knife, fork and spoon on the kitchen wall, a gigantic bronze nose in the bathroom, the plaster head of Neptune propped over the fireplace. They’ve knocked down a few walls and are in the middle of constructing some others, opening the place up some.

Jared hasn’t left much of a mark on his bedroom outside of the crumpled, unmade bed, the laundry in the corner and the laptop that’s partially shoved under the dresser, but underneath the traces of fresh-cut lumber and dust, it smells like him, that earthy, fresh, singular Jared-smell, and Jensen likes that. Jared’s beside him, close but not too close, eating a piece of pizza crust-first, and Jensen likes that too.

The other bedroom is another story. Jeff’s just finished refitting a big walk-in closet, lined it with cedar and put up some built-in’s and wants to show it off. A dress uniform takes up a prominent place in the closet, carefully shrouded in plastic, and a series of medals of honor are displayed in a case on the wall, below them a sword and sheath affixed to a wooden plaque.

Jensen’s been away from it all for a while, but he should have seen it. He should have _known_. It’s as obvious as the nose on his face. As obvious as the sun.

Jeff notices Jensen’s stare. Deepening his voice, making it weighty, Jeff says, “Semper fi.”

And before Jensen knows it, before he can stop himself, he straightens his back, balls his fists at his sides and squares his heels. “Oo-rah.”

“Third assault outta Pendleton,” Jeff says, although Jensen already knows that. It’s written on the brass plate under his medals. “Desert Storm.”

“The one-nine,” Jensen says by rote, well-schooled. “Afghanistan. Twice.”

“The Walking Dead.” Jeff throws an arm around Jensen’s shoulders, shakes him so hard he bites his tongue. “As badass as they come.”

“Yes, sir,” Jensen says, and now he has blood in his mouth.

Surprise is splashed plainly over Jared’s face, and damned if his smile doesn’t look a little impressed. “How did you know?”

“Takes one to know one,” Jeff supplies. “You might be able to leave the Corps, but the Corps never really leaves you.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Jensen mutters under his breath. Jeff’s rambling on, dropping hints that he wants to trade war stories but Jensen can’t pay attention. He wants to be outside, where there are no ceilings and no walls, where Jeff’s not around and he can get his hands on Jared for a few minutes, so he says, “Idle hands. What do you need us to do?”

If Jeff’s put off by the quick change in topic, he doesn’t show it. “I’d like to get that half wall between the kitchen and dining room up today. A few three-foot studs should do it.”

“Aye, aye,” Jensen says, and pushes Jared toward the front door. He takes the stairs two at a time, skids to a stop and leans against the house, tips his head up toward the sky and lets the heat from the sun soak into him.

“Are you okay?” Jared touches his elbow, hesitant and light.

“I’m great,” Jensen lies. It’s complicated, and Jensen tries his level best to not let things become complicated anymore.

“I have to tell you that you _really_ don’t seem like the kinda guy who would wind up taking orders.”

Jensen waves it away. “Hey. Do you think Jeff would mind if I misappropriated some of this lumber? Misha’s making me this custom board, and I think some of this would be ace for the rails.”

“Don’t change the subject.” Jared straightens his back, squares his shoulders as if he’s made some sort of decision. He takes a step forward, closes in. “This is gonna sound fucked up, and maybe more than a little creepy, but it’s not like I have anything to lose, right? I—I can’t get you out of my head, and I know that I only have another week and…and I want to know everything about you. There’s nothing I don’t want to know.”

Jensen’s heart feels like it’s the wrong shape in his chest. Square hole, round peg. “Okay. Alright. Where do you wanna start?”

“Right here,” Jared says, and closes the space between them, plants his hands on either side of Jensen’s head, shoves his thigh between Jensen’s and traps him there. He rocks into Jensen, tongue searing hot as he licks into Jensen’s mouth, traces the shape of his teeth then moves onto his jaw, sucks at the tender spot beneath his ear until Jensen’s sure that a bruise is rising to the surface.

Jensen fights to trap a moan behind his teeth, fucking loves this new incarnation of Jared, one that’s all keyed-up and implacable. He shoves his hands under Jared’s shirt, splays his fingers on his back so he can feel the shift of his muscle, the dip of his spine at his waist, moves around to Jared’s chest and scrapes a thumbnail over his nipple. Jared makes a breathy sound against his throat and his hips stab forward, so he does it again.

Something inside the house clatters, the racket of it loud through the open windows and Jared pauses, whispers into Jensen’s ear, “Your place.”

“Fuck yeah,” Jensen agrees. “But what about…”

“I’m an irresponsible college student, remember?” Jared says, pulling him along, and Jensen almost has to jog to keep up with his long strides.

“I don’t think you are.”

“Seems like a good time to start.”

The buzzing under Jensen’s skin doesn’t lessen during the quick trip to his house. If anything, it grows stronger, and they’re hardly inside the door before he’s spins on Jared, rips his shirt over his head and latches onto his nipple, teasing it between his teeth while he unzips Jared’s pants.

Jared’s not the only one who wants to know everything, and Jensen definitely didn’t get to see enough of him the other day. Jensen gets Jared stripped down, pushes his shoulders against the door and takes a step back, his own shirt dangling from his wrist. He’s so fucking gorgeous, big all over, his chest toned but not too bulky and colored with a faintly pink blush. His cock hangs heavy between his legs, a slight upward curve, gleaming wet at the tip.

It’s been a long time since Jensen’s let someone fuck him, a very long time since he’s wanted anyone to be that close, but he wants it now. So badly. Jensen shucks his shorts and Jared flings his arms out for him, but Jensen’s crooks his finger, silently leading Jared into his room. He digs around in his drawer and throws some lube and a condom onto the bed then spreads himself out, legs set in a wide open splay.

Jared’s mouth goes slack, his face darkens and his cock leaps hugely, a bead of precome oozing from his slit to drip down the length of it, and Jensen could quite possibly come from that alone, from that physical proof of how badly Jared wants this, wants _him_.

“Get in here,” Jensen tells him, and cants his hips up, proves to Jared that he’s sure, proves it all over again and pours some lube onto Jared’s fingers as soon as he’s within reach. He guides Jared’s hand down, and heat spreads from his chest outward once Jared cottons on, gets with the goddamn program, pushes past the tight ring of muscle with his index finger and glides it in and out.

So careful, excruciatingly gentle, one finger and then another, and it’s really fucking good, devastatingly sweet, the way Jared watches him the entire time, torn between the sight of his finger disappearing into Jensen’s body and each small change in Jensen’s expression. Jensen gets impatient for it, wants the fast burning punch and the stretch of Jared’s dick, so he finds the condom in the mess of blankets, opens it with his teeth and rolls the taste of latex around in his mouth even as he’s rolling it down Jared’s cock, because even that’s good, a hint of what’s about to come.

Jensen’s shaking, anticipation in every nerve, and Jared starts to shake too, or maybe he has been for a while now, as he hovers over Jensen with his hair crashed across his face. And he tries to control it, thighs straining and arms locked in place, holding himself aloft, fixated on Jensen’s face as he breaks past Jensen’s rim and sinks inside, inch by slow, slow inch until he’s in as far as he can go, nothing between them but a layer of sweat.

Jared lets out a moan, guttural like he’s dragged it up from his toes, angles his hips up and drives them forward again, and Jensen locks his legs around the small of Jared’s waist, wants him to stay still, stay right there, full and huge and deep for just a minute.  
Jared kisses him, forgets to kiss him then remembers all over again, and Jensen starts to move, squirm under the weight of Jared pressing him into the mattress, and Jared takes the hint and ruts into him, learning to read all of Jensen’s cues.

Jensen comes so fast it surprises both of them, from only the barest friction, streaking their already slick stomachs. He clamps down on Jared’s cock and Jared hauls him up, half off of the bed, his back arched and his legs sprawled on top of Jared’s thighs. Jared’s thrusts quicken, relentless and necessary, and Jared goes shuddery, trembling and moaning as he comes, his whole body racked with short, intense spasms.

They lay still for a while after, and Jensen thinks he might have dozed off for a few seconds at a time as Jared goes soft inside of him, moving in lazy thrusts with the occasional aftershock of his orgasm. Minutes pass before Jared pulls out, knots up the condom and misses the trashcan.

“Holy shit,” Jared says, groggy. He curls himself around Jensen, rests his head on Jensen’s chest.

“Yeah. So what else do you wanna know?”

Jared shifts, locks eyes with him, pointy chin digging into Jensen’s chest. “Why did you leave?”

It’s a loaded question. Five bullets in the chamber, but Jared’s just fucked the hell outta him, and Jensen’s feeling charitable. “I spent three years in the Corps. Had a ten-month tour that tuned into twice that. Saw some really hairy shit.”

“You don’t have too…“

“I know, but I’ve started now. Anyway, this friend of mine and I…we’d been together since basic, and we both ending up stateside, undergoing some pretty hefty training at Lejeune. Hardcore, P.O.W. stuff.” Jensen pauses. “He broke. Couldn’t take it, wound up pulling a gun on me and our C.O. one night. Storming like a motherfucker and he made me give him the keys to my car, crashed into a locked gate trying to escape. I haven’t had a car since then.”

“Did he make it out?”

“No,” Jensen says, “I’ll spare you the details. Ironic. You spent twenty months in-country, and it’s the trip back that socks it to you. I was alright before all that. So I came home, told myself that I’d do a complete one-eighty, only that one-eighty mighta turned into a three-sixty at some point. I don’t fucking know. I lost track. There are skid marks everywhere.”

“Did you love him?”

“Yeah, I did. But not in the way you’re thinking.”

 

“It’s a dangerous night.” Chris stands in Jared’s doorway, arms crossed over his chest and shifting from foot to foot with pent up nerves. They’ve lost power. It’s pouring out, teeth-rattling crashes of thunder and sharp spikes of lightning every few seconds. “Dunno, man. It’s been a while.”

“What does that mean?” Jared is already pulling on his boots and tightening the laces. Behind him, Jeff occupies himself in the living room, lingering in a real obvious way.

“It’s the storm. He--” Chris chews off the word, draws his lips back from his teeth in a frustrated snarl. “Maybe you could help. Fuck, I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Shouldn’t you call someone?” Jared asks. “Get him some help?”

“I did the first couple of times. Learned my lesson.”

Jared isn’t sure what to say to that. It takes less than thirty seconds to dash to Jensen’s door and he’s soaked to the bone after five. A single candle is lit in the corner of the living room and Sophia’s beside it, folded in a chair, hugging her knees.

The place looks like the storm has invited itself inside. Books are everywhere, the couch cushions are jumbled and scattered all over the floor. Every cabinet in the kitchen is flung wide open.

Sophia shakes her head. “No better.”

“Should I be afraid?” Jared asks. Curiously, he isn’t.

“It’s not like that,” Chris says. He pauses, hand on the doorknob, takes a deep breath. “He won’t hurt you. He never hurts anyone but himself. Listen, if it’s too much...”

“It’s Jensen,” Jared insists. “It’s not too much. It’s never gonna be too much.” With that, he walks through the door.

Jensen’s bedroom is in worse shape than the rest of the house. Clothes everywhere, the couple of pictures on the wall hang at wrong angles, the sheets have been torn off the bed and Jensen’s situated himself on the edge of the mattress, backed up into a corner.

“I told them I was fine,” Jensen says, talking too fast. His face is pale and his eyes are wide, whites all around, dark thumbprints underneath. “I know I tend to imprint. I have trouble letting go. Get stuck on people and situations and just.” He stops, draws in a huge, trembling breath, tries to let it out nice and slow, but it all comes out in a rush. “There should be a way to go back. To that first night I met you and do it all over. Make it so that you don’t have to deal with this.”

“What’s this? What’s happening?” Jared eases himself onto the bed. Jensen has a lantern beside him, pumping out a pale blue glow that throws strange, surreal shadows on the walls. It can’t be helping, so Jared turns it off.

“Everything happens in threes.”

“But there’s only one of you, and one of me,” Jared says, not sure if logic will work, but this is Jensen, and he has to try.

“Yeah, but there are three reasons you shouldn’t be here.” Jensen hides his face behind his hands.

“That means that there are three reasons that I should stay.”

“You don’t have to stay.” Still hiding, muffled.

“See, that’s the problem,” Jared states. “I kinda think you’re perfect. There’s no where else I’d rather go.” He slides further along the bed, pushes and pulls at Jensen until he manages to get between him and the wall, his back propped up in the corner. He hugs Jensen very tightly to his chest, cradles him between his widespread knees and Jensen seems calmer already, doesn’t even bitch about his boots on the bed. Sand is getting everywhere.

The wind is still howling and rain still pounds on the roof, and the tree branches lash against the sides of the house with a snapping sound like bones breaking, but it seems quieter, less immediate. Lightning still flashes but Jensen’s relaxing against him, and that’s what matters. His chest rises and falls against Jared’s hand, slower now.

“The storm is passing,” Jared says. “It’ll pass.”

Jensen wraps his hand around Jared’s ankle, picks at his bootlaces and the scratches and scars in the leather. “Do me a favor, would you? Don’t fall in love with me, okay?”

Jared presses his lips to the nape of Jensen’s neck. “How am I supposed to stop?”

 

Time speeds up. There never seems to be enough of it. Everything starts running behind.

Jared walks out onto the back porch one morning to find five clam shells spread out in a spiral pattern, various shapes and sizes, coral colored. He knocks on Jensen’s door and Jensen doesn’t answer. Neither does Chris.

The next morning, there are four. Jensen still doesn’t answer, but this time Chris does.

“He’s good. Scared the fuck out of us, but he’s okay. Give him a couple of days and he’ll be right as rain.”

“How many times has this happened?” They’re standing on the beach and the sun is very bright. It’s been only two days and already Jared misses Jensen like crazy, feels like an essential part of him has been hacked off. Stolen. Four more days and then Jared won’t be able to come back for four months.

“Four. This was the fourth. I’ve pulled him out of it every time but this one. They’ve tried to treat him, medicate him for it, anti-depressants, but he hates taking ‘em and I don’t blame him. It’s like he turns into half of a person when he’s on them. Half of himself.” After a pause, “He’s crazy about you.” Chris sniffs. “Bad choice of words.”

Jensen had been wrong. Today, everything is happening in fours.

It’s not until the morning after that Jared understands it. Three sand dollars arranged in a triangle. Counting down. He picks them up and places them alongside the others on his dresser. He’ll have to wrap them up carefully; they’re very fragile.

Jared finishes the half-wall in the dining room. He installs a heavy granite countertop and it doesn’t go crashing to the ground. It’s considered a win. They’re running out of time to paint, but Jeff waves him off, tells him to go out for a swim.

The sun is setting, a fiery red glow on the horizon. Jared floats, allows the current to carry him toward the sandbar. It’s low tide, and as he stands on the sandbar it really looks like he’s walking on water, and of course he thinks about Jensen, how Jensen had told him that there was more than one kind of miracle. Tiny white sand crabs skitter over his toes. Jensen’s house is still dark.

Two comrie shells greet him the next time he opens his door, brown and black spotted, shiny, heavy and smooth in his hand. All day two lines from a children’s nursery rhyme play and replay in Jared head. An endless loop. _One for sorrow, two for joy._

On the last day, Jared wakes up to a knock on his door. It’s five in the morning and his eyes feel like sandpaper, gritty and raw. Jensen’s standing there, framed by the doorway, a conch shell in his hand.

“I saved the best one for last,” he says, and holds it out.

Jared turns it over, thinks about holding it up to his ear, but his heartbeat is already pounding so loudly that he probably wouldn’t be able to hear the ocean anyway.

“Listen—“ Jensen starts, an apology in the slump of his shoulders, his fidgety feet.

“It’s okay,” Jared interrupts him. “I get it. Don’t be sorry. You made it back, and that’s what matters.”

“I don’t want to give you back.” Jensen tries a brave smile on for size, but it spreads across his face too big and too wrong. Jared still thinks he’s beautiful for trying.

Jared wraps his arms around him, scuffs his hand through Jensen’s hair, spikey and soft. He nudges his nose against Jensen’s neck and breathes in the smell of sun-warmed skin, opens his mouth on the place where his neck meets his shoulder and tastes saltwater. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back. You taught me the way, remember?

 

 

The sky is the cold color of iron, no break in the cloud cover and the ocean is angry today. A winter ocean. Chris is gone for the day and has left Jensen to his own devices.

Four months since Jared left to go back to school, and Jensen still doesn’t have a phone. He calls Chris sometimes, and occasionally Sophie drops by and lets him know that Jared’s aced some exam for some design class or another. Jensen’s learned a long time ago that clean breaks were a hell of a lot better than crooked ones, so he smiles and thanks them for keeping him in the loop.

The house next door is dark all the time. It never gets viciously cold here, but December is still the off-season and no one ever rents in the winter. He considers climbing into the attic and getting down the Christmas lights, fuck around on the roof for a while and surprise Chris when he got home. Maybe even run a few extension cords and doll up the place next door, help make it look lived in.

Decision made, Jensen spends the next hour digging through boxes, untangling knotted up lights that he’s sure he’d put away right a few years ago, the last time he’d decided to spread some cheer around. Armed with a ladder and with stringed lights wrapped all around his body, Jensen climbs up to the peak of Jeff’s roof. The clouds are starting to dissolve and the sun is coming out. The view is nice, and Jensen gets stuck there for a while, watching the waves roll into the shore, watching the tide recede and the sandbar to the north show its face. He thinks about Jared, but that’s nothing new. Hardly anything is new and nothing ever changes, and that’s at once the best and worst thing about this place.

Years ago, when Jensen was fresh out of the service, he’d had to spend a good chunk of every Tuesday and Thursday with this government mandated shrink. She’d told him about this thing called shared reality. Probably some sorta psychobabble, a PC way of telling Jensen that he’d been fucked up, disassociating at the time. He doesn’t remember a lot about it, except that it dealt with self-esteem and self-concept, something about social mores and building lasting, meaningful relationships. Over the years, Jensen’s definition of it has changed, skewed, and maybe one day he’ll look it up again, try and get it right.

He’s thinking about it again now, as he watches a dark SUV crawl down the street and turn into the driveway. He’s thinking about it as Jared climbs out of it and looks up at him, one eye squinted shut against the light.

Jensen never remembers things as they actually are. It’s as if he memory works with a different sort of criteria, a set of rules unlike a lot of other people’s. Things are always bigger or smaller. Not Jared, though. Jared is one thing that he’s gotten exactly right. He’s paler from winter, and maybe his hair’s a little shorter than last time he was here, but Jensen’s remembered his smile spot on, his nervous habit of chewing lips, how he scuffs his feet and his awkward tendency to not know precisely what to do with his hands.

He doesn’t remember the climb down the ladder, and he also doesn’t remember his dash toward the driveway, but Jared wraps his arms around Jensen and holds on for the longest time, and that is something that Jensen _is_ going to remember. So is the soft press mouth against Jensen’s, and the way he looks at Jensen like he’s the most beautiful thing on this miraculous hunk of floating rock.

Jared laughs as he glances over Jensen’s shoulder and takes in the drooping string of lights on the gutter. “I’d be careful up there. Remember I worked on that house and can’t really attest to its structural integrity.” He even sounded good, his voice deep and hoarse.

“What are you...how,” Jensen tries. He cups Jared’s face between his hands, holds Jared very still and looks at him. Just looks at him. “What brought you this way?

Jared cut his gaze toward the sky. It’s getting dark. The stars were only now starting to break through the light. “I needed to come home for a while. I needed to see my lost boy, so I took the second star to the right.”

\--fin

Thanks for reading!


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